Blog 10

There are definitely good and bad aspects to the internet and the presence of internet-using technology in our world. I have grown up with the internet. We always had desktop computers in our basement, I didn't use them much when I was younger, but they were there. People always talk about the internet taking away childhood. I can see aspects of that in my youngest sister. My first phone was a cute little slider, my youngest sister's first phone was an iPhone 7. Granted times are much different now than they were when I was her age. "Everyone" has iPhones now, "everyone" had a slider phone when I was 11. My phone did not have access to the internet, unless we paid extra for it, and it was really slow internet anyways. Obviously the iPhone has internet always. My sister is constantly on her phone. Sometimes, she plays Fortnite on her phone and FaceTimes friends on my mom's phone and her iPad all at the same time, "so we can play Fortnite together without actually being together." Also, she is way brattier and meaner to my mom than both my middle sister and I were at her age. I wonder if her behavior has to do with the presence of social media as a constant in her life. My middle sister and I didn't have nearly as much contact with social media as she does, but also she's the youngest and thinks she knows everything like a typical 13-year-old. Her exposure to the internet has not made her less active or spend any less time outside, however. She plays volleyball all the time, when she's not at practice, she's begging someone to play one-on-one outside with her. I would say, the presence of her iPhone and the internet has not affected her childhood much. She's grown up faster and deals with the pressures of social media, but it hasn't seemed to affect her much, maybe just her attitude towards my mom.

I use the internet constantly. I stream music, I watch Netflix, and I do most of my homework online. The internet has made communicating with professors so much easier through email. It has helped me greatly with homework questions (Khan Academy) and researching, especially for my foundations of biology class where I need to look up scientific research papers all the time. Without the internet making my life so much easier and my homework go so much faster, I think I would be stuck in a library 24/7.

So, with internet being present on little portable devices, like iPhones, we are still able to go outside and enjoy many aspects of life because we are not limited to being stuck in the basement all day on a desktop computer. The internet helps us stay connected, even if we are FaceTiming friends that live 3 blocks away. Downfalls of the internet include less in-person time and more stress over social media 'likes'. Overall, the internet has made many many many lives much easier and better, including my own.