Saturday, May 17, 2014

What is the Internet doing to us?

    I watched the "Short film on a computer screen" video, and I was glued to the screen the whole time. Besides the fact that it basically bashed my whole generation, it was such a good short film that I had to show it to some of my friends. I was in awe of what he did, and didn't start to think that maybe I was in his shoes at some points during my use of the internet and social media.
    Through this video, we say the bad things which result from social media. There is a lack of communication and over generalization which then leads to hasty assumptions and peoples relationships become broken or feelings are hurt. I personally believe that this video holds true to how my generation actually acts. I think that  the internet is used as an escape from your current activity when you start to lose concentration. So in my life, when I'm working on homework, it makes my attention span less because it gives me a reason to stop what I'm doing and go do something that will entertain me for a brief moment, like watch a you tube video. This makes it much harder for us to concentrate on one thing for a long period of time, so in short, the internet shortens our attention spans.
    The video seemed to be mainly concentrating on the Internets effect on relationships between people. It gave the impression that the internet ruins relationships. When the boy in the video broke up with his girlfriend on Facebook, I think that was a little extreme. I'm sure something of that sort has happened before, but the internet isn't all that bad. It gives us a wealth of information, and actually improves the amount of connections we can make between people. Although I do believe it increases the amount of people we can connect with, I do not believe that it increases the relationships we already have. For example, from the viedo, the main character seemed to have a friend who he was always chatting with who would ask him to play games, but that seemed to be the extent of their relationship. There was no contact shown except for through facebook messages. There is no way that they could have been very close friends with that little contact. I know from personal experience that I have made hasty assumptions about people on facebook, and sometimes I get angry, but then I think about it and realize that I'm getting upset over nothing. So the internet isn't all that bad, but it does not help you create strong relationships with people like the good old days when everyone wrote letters.
    Overall, this video is on the right track of representing our generation as a whole, but I think that it over generalizes too much. It definitely gets the point across that people don't make good choices while on facebook, but that's not true for everyone. I've been in similar situations, but I don't think that any were that extreme. I think that anyone that watches this video should get off their computers and go outside for an hour or two.
-Brandon Reilly

No comments:

Post a Comment