We live in the age of the Internet, which is really cool.
We have access to mountains of information with just a simple Google search.
Today, as I pondered many deep and strange things, which, because I am an English major I am prone to do, I was struck by the thought that college must have been so much harder back in the days of old.
When people had to go to the library instead of Wikipedia. Unthinkable.
Before the Internet, when you had to pore over volumes of old and dusty books in order to find the information you were searching for.
That led me to even more deep and profound thoughts about my own behavior and the behavior of our generation.
I had to ask myself why my peers and I are so content, or even eager, to simply waste our time with trivial nonsense on the ?Internet.
I honestly cannot imagine having to go through college without the ?technology we have today.
I try to think about how I would complete even the most simple assignment without using the Internet in some way, shape or form.
I think it would ?probably kill me.
Not to mention I have no idea how I would waste all of my time without the help of Netflix and all of those Buzzfeed quizzes that just really seem to ?understand my soul.
Countless hours are invested each day in social media and various entertainment websites such as Buzzfeed, Youtube or ?Netflix.
There is no immediate payoff or any particular intellectual benefit to partaking in such activities. In fact, it’s actually rather mind-numbing.
I think this current generation has become too content with wasting time, rather than using it to better ourselves, our lives and the lives of others.
I, too, am guilty of this. Wasting time is a very easy thing to do.
But wasting our time also leaves us empty.
There is no purpose to drive us along when we just sit around doing pointless things on the Internet all day.
And night.
I don’t think the Internet is a terrible thing or that we should do away with Internet entertainment, but I think it’s important that our generation take a moment to consider why we are so content to waste time.
To be very cliché for a moment, we are our future, and we cannot progress if we don’t take action.
We would be able to feel so much more fulfilled if we invested our time in things that are stimulating, like reading a book or taking a hike or forming new ?friendships.
We can’t let our time go by wasted.
johnstra@indiana.edu
