There are plenty of people who can imagine a world without cable, internet, or cell phones, because their generation, grew up without those very things, so they definitely understand how the world worked, back in the day. On the other hand, there are plenty of people, who essentially have lived their lives experiencing a world with the internet, cable, and with cellphones, and it is these very people, that we should want to know as to whether or not they are the same type of people in the sense of their characteristics as a couple of generations ago, or whether because of the internet, cable, and cell phones, they are in many a way, different.
It needs to be understood that whenever some new tool or advancement comes into play and thereupon becomes pretty much commonplace, that there is going to be for many a person, a situation in which besides not only taking that tool for granted but also because they eventually become dependent upon that tool, they thereupon can’t phantom how to live their lives without it. For instance, the great thing about the internet is it truly gets us connected to the world, so that we can accomplish our work, and homework, as well as look up things, necessary or not, watch videos, access our social media, and so on and so forth; however, the downside of the internet and our cell phones is it can serve as a constant source of distraction, of disengaging us from dealing with real people in real-time, and it can serve sort of as a sugar-substitute for the real thing, or even be worse. Additionally, another problem with the internet is that because it is constantly on, that means that to a certain degree, we are constantly on, and thereby available to do work after hours or to become involved in activities that don’t have any real good purpose, other than to occupy our time.
So then, a person might reasonably think that having access, for example, to an online encyclopedia, in real-time, would for a certainty make us smarter, but the reality of the situation is that it seems to make us lazier, because rather than contemplating a particular problem and thereby thinking, we use the crutch of the internet to sort of do our thinking for us.
Also, it would have to be said, the biggest problem with cell phones and the like is that they far too often substitute for a real conversation with real people, with counterfeit conversations, which aren’t the same thing – so that for all those, that just have to look at their phone whenever it pings them when they have an email, or a text message, or a social media update, this serves to break our concentration on what we should be concentrating upon, to replace it with something that we shouldn’t even be considering.
For all those who believe that they have full control of how they utilize the internet and that they therefore are the masters of such usage, the full test of that dynamic, would have to be when the internet is completely turned off, and then to see how that person’s life changes. One would suspect that the biggest change besides frustration would be that people would be more engaged with other people in conversations and doing things together, which arguably would be an improvement to what they are currently doing by having unlimited access to the internet and the like.