Liam+P's+Op-Ed+Article

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Coming down from a long, stress inducing day of school, I decide right away to plop myself down in front of my computer screen and just fry. Frying away my stress, thoughts, and tiredness. Or so I think. As I sit there in my frying state I am actually inflicting more detrimental damage to myself; unconsciously brewing all of the things I must complete in order to have a less stressful day, of which I am not completely. The main cause of this dystrophy: internet.

Believe me when I tell you, I am one of the good ones; I hardly spend a half hour or hour a day on Facebook before I usually go and do something physically active or something of the sort. But even those seemingly short periods of time could be used to do something prolific. If I actually take the time and think about what I am looking at on my screen I would see this: a series of images and text that friends share and post to share with the “world” which is really just a network of a collection of people who are labeled as friends, these people read or watch what you post, blatantly ingest it, and then judge your character and persona off of what you have just shared with them. And what is the point to this? Is there a Facebook award they give you for getting a high amount of likes or comments? Are you in anyway providing a better life or bettering other’s lives by being “connected”? You are wasting your time. And so am I.

I miss the days when I didn’t know everywhere my friends have been and where they are going just by logging onto a computer. I miss knocking on doors, writing letters, going over to someone’s house to see if they are there, and learning things by word of mouth. We are becoming more outspoken, sharing our “lives” with the outside world, but really are we not becoming more distracted and complacent? What about CD’s? I hate it. Photos are shared relentlessly and without stop, demeaning the specialty and uniqueness of a photograph. iPhones, tablets, skinnier laptops, etc. It’s portable, fast, and easier; easier to share your life, faster to let everyone know where you are and whom with, and more portable so you have the obsession wherever you go. I don’t understand it. What happened to learning about people’s lives by having a long, deep conversation and being surprised and the many tales and stories? In this current state all you have to do is go to tagged pictures or places, look at their info, and maybe a few wall posts and there you have it; you’ve conjured up this person and know just about everything you think you need to know about them without having any real personal contact.

It’s time to rethink the contemporary state in which we are led by deception and conceit, painting pictures of what we want our life to look like on display for the whole internet to see. In the long run it will mean absolute nothing, no one will remember who got 200 likes on their “So and so is now a licensed driver” status and no one will care. In a more relative example, a college will most definitely not reward you for your excellence shown in the internet department. You will not fix your problems, understand people better, or feel good about yourself if you continue to feed this fire of connectivity. It’s time to get up out of your computer chair, throw your phone out the window, unplug your electricity and start to do front flips off of things. Get outside, get uncomfortable, hassle people, talk to people, read books, pull pranks, ring doorbells, knock on doors, provoke others, run around, and if you get bored, you probably have some kind of Amex homework you could be working on.