Stewart: Internet inspires electronic ADD
A plethora of online distractions keep students from working
By Ross Stewart (Contact)
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
My roommate and I just spent 15 minutes searching Google for a picture entitled, “I can has cheeseburger?” that we thought was titled, “happy cat.” The Internet and Facebook are ruining our generation. The ruining of our generation can be directly related to the failing of finals.
In the midst of trying to type this piece of journalistic excellence, I’ve stopped not once but twice already to check my e-mail and Facebook. Not out of boredom, nor frustration, but out of something more frightening. Habit.
Even right now as I type this, my roommate and I are looking at icanhascheeseburger.com for no particular reason (it’s a variation of lolcats.com). There’s Coltrane playing in the background, Steinbeck and Kerouac on the table waiting for a good thumbing through, heck, even the gym is open. We could be enriching ourselves, but we chose to look at icanhascheeseburger.com.
(Enjoy yourself at lolcats.com for 15 minutes before reading the next paragraph; that’s how long it took us to stop looking at it.)
Onto my point. Our generation is being ruined by this ugly habit we’ve picked up that isn’t about necessity or ease or really anything. It isn’t about anything. We really don’t have any reason to use online distractions multiple times a day other than that it turned into a good way to waste time.
You’d start by checking your e-mail once a day and your Facebook twice a week. But it’d quickly escalated into many times a day. You’d start checking when you woke up, when you went to sleep, sometimes even on your lunch break. It’s addictive. Then you can move onto looking into Web sites your friends post notes about, ranging from gross, to cute, to confusing. You check out Web sites from e-mails your friends send you about inane subjects. Then all of a sudden you’re hooked. If your computer crashes over the weekend and you have no idea what to do, you’ve got a problem.
With the onset of finals we, as students, really have to watch how we use our time. I’m even one who usually says not to worry about finals. In the grand scheme of things they really don’t matter. But, right now they do, especially with how much money we all spend on tuition.
So let’s all do ourselves a favor. No more Facebook until finals are over. Sound good? No more lolcats.com or unnecessary e-mail checking. No more internet time wasting.
I’m even tempted to just look one more time at the picture on lolcats.com that says, “Is it can be hugs tiem now plees?” but I’m not going to. I won’t if you won’t. Deal?
Stewart is a Wichita junior in journalism.
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