Staying Connected with the Internet!

With every step forward in technological advances, there have been people who have proclaimed that it was going to be the fall of society. Also, with each step forward people have been able to become more connected to other people with less effort. For instance when people first started to read and began to write stories down there were those who viewed this as a step back because it would mean that people would no longer need to recall stories at any moment; they would just have to read from a piece of paper. However, this new technology made sharing stories easier for people. When the telegraph was first introduced people were able to communicate with friends and family members who lived in another city. With the telephone, people could talk to someone else across the state or country. Now, with the internet people are able to communicate with other people from all over the world. There are also people who believe that this new technology is going to destroy our community life and make people grow farther apart. I believe the internet is helping us become more connected to each other through email, social networking sites and blogs.

I believe that with the internet people are becoming more connected because they can communicate with people in any part of the world if they wish. When people were graduating from high school and college 15 years ago it was hard for them to stay in touch with their classmates and close friends. If they wanted to communicate with people they did not have the luxury of being able to switch on their computer and check Facebook. Even though 10 years ago some people had an email address, the number of those who did is miniscule compared to the number that have one (or even two) today. Today it seems like everyone and their dog has an email address. It is easier for people to communicate via email today because, along with the rise in addresses, people are spending more time checking their email.

There are a plethora of social networking sites on the internet but the two most popular are Facebook and MySpace. When Facebook first emerged, it was only for those who were Harvard students, then it was for Ivy League students, then it was available for any college student. Not long after it was made available for college students, it was available for anyone with an email address, no matter what their age or geographic location was. Now more people are getting Facebook accounts so they can stay in touch with family members, friends and even co-workers. There has been a rise in the number of parents who have set up accounts on Facebook so they can stay in touch with their children who are away at college. Even though they are able to pick up the phone and call each other, it is more fun to write messages to each other.

The other popular social networking site is MySpace. There are more bands that have MySpace pages than there are on Facebook and they use their pages to connect to their fans. The bands put up tour dates, pictures of their shows and some songs on their personalized MySpace pages for their fans to look at. Before MySpace, a fan would have a difficult time finding out tour dates and other information about their favorite bands. Now that MySpace is around all a person has to do is go to their MySpace page and look up the information they want.

Blogs are also helping people stay connected. Any person is able to blog about any topic they want at any time they want. It is common for people to write blogs when they go on trips so friends and family members can experience the trip along with the traveler. Before the internet, people had to wait for the person to return home from the trip to hear about it and wait even longer for the pictures to be developed. Nowadays, a person can blog about their trip and upload pictures about it and people can see the blog as soon as the author pushes the submit button. For instance, when I went to Croatia and Germany this summer I set up a blog about my trip for my friends and family to experience a portion of what I’ve experienced. Because of the internet I was able to write my blog in a town on the Adriatic Sea in Croatia then write more while gazing at the Swiss Alps in Konstanz, Germany.

The internet has helped people connect in ways that were not possible 15-20 years ago because of email, social networking sites and blogs, among other things. Even though there are many people who become addicted to the internet and separate themselves from parts of society, this is not the norm. The internet has linked people together from different cities, states and countries. Because of the internet we are experiencing what people call Glocalization. This is when what is considered local has grown from within a town to the whole world. It is when I can be in Germany and talk to a friend back home in Minnesota on a webcam and feel like I am sitting across a table from them chatting about our days and adventures.