The Internet: From Subversion to Submersion

I can remember when the Internet was a new and shiny thing, when people would wait only somewhat impatiently for their dial-up connections to get them to mostly text-based webpages or newsgroups or a few discussion boards. I remember being in a computer lab in junior high, which was around a decade ago, watching a friend wait almost a full half hour to download a small soundclip from a Simpsons fanpage. The sound was about 10 seconds long, but he waited. He didn't have a choice but to wait. Maybe a few dedicated lines for dial-up connections spread amongst 10-15 computers made for a very slow connection speed.

I can remember the first day I experienced a high-speed connection. My parents and I gathered around the computer, watching a song download on Napster. Downloading a simple 4 minute song on our old dial-up connection could have taken half an hour, if we weren't doing anything else online at the time. With the new and improved high-speed connection, we watched in amazement as the progress bar filled right before our eyes, and the download was complete in a matter of minutes.

Now the Internet has evolved beyond that point, for me and for countless others around the world. What used to be the domain of geeks and nerds is now a place for everyone, inclusive to such an extreme level that at least in western society, it's something of a shock to come across somebody who doesn't have a computer with an Internet connection. Even if they only use it to check their email once per week, the Internet has almost become a standard household thing, something that everybody has, and those who don't have it are to be pitied in some way for their deficiency.

There are reasons for the change. Back in the day, when home Internet access was still relatively new, it could be expensive. Not everybody had a computer, and even then those who did have one might not have had one with the capability to actually support a modem and a connection very well. Those who could were likely to be either well-off, or somewhat dedicated to working with computers in the first place.

But then technology improved to make computers faster and better, able to support more, and that technology become more widely available to your average consumer. Before long, parents were buying computers for their kids to help with schoolwork and perhaps to assist with work of their own, and then technology kept improving and prices kept falling more and more into the 'affordable' range, and more entertainment was thrown into the bundle. How many people have a computer that's primarily used for playing games on, or used more for personal entertainment than for research or communication? How many of you at least know somebody who uses their computer for that purpose?

So in a relatively short time, we saw computers and the Internet go from a more subversive state of being, the domain of the few and the weird, to a submersive state, where everybody is invited and it's so easy to get sucked in.

But while computers have numerous good points, the increase in use and usability also have their down sides.

The most obvious double-edged sword is the issue of communication. Increasing Internet access across the globe has allowed us all with unparalled access to news in other countries, the ability to have pen-pals on the other side of the world with greater ease, the chance to explore other cultures and ways of life with just the click of a button. People have a fast way to connect with people who share their hobbies, their likes and dislikes, even though they may in other countries and would have never met had it not been for the mutual shared advantage of a computer and a decent connection speed. Keeping an online journal used to be sneered at by many, but now it has taken off, and 'blogging', as it's now commonly known, is widely approved and enjoyed by countless.

But in the wave of worldwide communication, we have, unfortunately, learned to alienate ourselves from those a lot closer to home. How many times to we pass up going outside on a beautiful day because we're busy reading about a blog about a beautiful day in China? How many times to we skip interactions with friends from down the street because we're talking to a friend halfway around the world? Heck, how often do we skip face-to-face interactions with people because it's just easier to talk to them online? In a world full of access, we've forgotten how to actually access the things close by, instead using a middleman (the Internet) or to access things far away instead.

While it's great to keep up with our friends in other countries, we have to be careful to balance it out with our own lives right outside our front doors. What good is it to know what the weather's like in Bombay right now if you don't even know if the sun is shining in your own city? It's a big wide world out there, but limiting yourself to know it only through text on a screen isn't exactly a good way to do things. It's helpful, yes, but before you go stalking neighbourhoods on Google Maps, step outside and take it what your own neighbourhood is like.

Most people have friends in other countries but have no idea who lives next door.

Another issue that particularly bothers me about Internet culture is the loss of standards. Now I can only speak for the English language when I say this, but the way a lot of people write online is appalling. Typos are one thing (we all make them, let's face it), but typign liek tihs all teh tiem iz jes dum.

Worse is when people type all in chatspeak. "I dun no bout u", but having to mentally arrange deliberate misspellings and letters-representing-words into actual words takes longer than just reading the whole words in the first place, which seems to me to defeat the purpose of developing a shorthand code in the first place.

These things might be somewhat more forgiveable if they stayed online, or in cellphone text messages. But ramping it the 'submersion' part of Internet culture, chatspeak or netspeak is now allowable on some tests and exams in various schools in America, the argument being that kids are so used to communicating that way that it's easier and quicker for them to use that shorthand on their official papers so long as they can still accurately communicate their ideas. An interesting concept, I have to admit, but it does sort of defeat the emphasis on proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar that has been stressed since, oh, I don't know, the first grade!

Really, until I'm allowed to use "ain't" on official forms and papers, I'll maintain that in school, we should actually be using standard English, thank you very much, and not some spillover from chatrooms where half the chatters go for cybersex anyway.

What used to be the realm of the intelligent, the reclusive and nerdy, is now the domain of the everyman, and while it's good to be inclusive, there comes a point where Internet culture, in being so inclusive and open to everyone, ends up spilling into our offline lives, or taking over the majority of our waking hours, which is the harmful side of the benefits we're being given with our Internet access. As with most things in life, the key is moderation, the ability to separate the luxury from the necesity, the good from the bad, and to be able to balance these forces effectively in life. Tools with computers and the Internet ought to (and frequently do) make our lives easier, but take that too far and the opposite happens. Standards lower, and we forget what's happening outside our front doors but are intimately aware with events halfway around the world.

But as much as I've stressed a lot of the negative consequences of such easy access, it would be stupid and ironic of me not to include all the other benefits that a more open Internet world has given me. Without communities building like HubPages, most of what I write would only be read by myself, or perhaps a select few friends. Increased visibility to people in my much-beloved fields of writing and crafting have improved my current skills and opened me up to new ones. Planning and coordination is easier than ever before, thanks to email.

What I caution against is taking all this ease too far, and taking the luxuries for granted. I can arrange a party with friends via email, or I could set up an IRC channel and we could have a text party, all of us together without ever having to see another living person. It removes the human element from the interaction, something which I've found can lead to people online being jerks to others and saying in their defense that it doesn't matter, because everyone else is just "words on a screen" and therefore not a real person at all. In cutting off real human contact in favour of electronic contact, is having e-lives instead of real lives, we're not just lowering standards on English papers, we're lowering standards for human interaction as a whole.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go spend some time with my roommate and enjoy what's left of the sunshine today.