I have always disliked the Internet. I know it has become a renowned part of our world and our society, supposedly giving us opportunities for connection and fame. I don't deny that; if I did, I would be a hypocrite. For instance, Young Writers Project would not exist on the same magnitude, and many people would not have had this great opportunity to share their voices. The Internet gives us places where we can meet people online, and connect with others like us. It gives us easy access to learn and spread information. It is a great tool, if used correctly. It is both an entire encyclopedia, which can be used to educate, and it is a connector, a tool for empathy and peace.
But due to the nature of humans, we have used it as a tool for abuse. First off, it has given people a platform to argue, demean and degrade each other, a place where they can wallow, unchecked, in their hatred and ignorance. It is a breeding ground for folly and stupidity, an endless cycle of miserable peoples arguing for the sake of arguing. Thus, with arguments, also comes exploitation. That can come from a single person, and it can sabotage another person's life completely over the course of a single day, or it can come in the shape of media. Media especially has twisted the Internet's wide-reaching audience, and in that way we have all become slaves to what the media portrays. We are what we see. The Internet controls us.
Not only does it control us, though, by the media's exploitation, we are controlled by the social constructs born through the Internet. Feel the need to constantly check your phone to reply to things such as posts or comments on Instagram, or send back a Snapchat? You know that you have become just another part in the mechanism that keeps the machine running smoothly.
But mostly I dislike the Internet because of the detachment humans have developed. We are turning away from kindness and love in order to inflate our egos and gain money. The Internet has taught us there is no other way of life – that you can't turn away from it because without it we would flounder. To a certain level that is true, but only if we treat it as such.
So overall, I would much prefer a world without the Internet. While it has given us a great many opportunities, it has created so many problems. It perpetuates violence, wars and hatred. While it was created as a force of good and protection, it has merely divided us all even more. How can we claim to be against violence and hatred, when at the end of the day we turn back to the comfort of the very force that is prolonging and sustaining it?
We are still a primitive people with a primitive mindset, but if we could learn to be a little more loving and peaceful maybe we could flourish. We don't need the Internet as a tool; what we need is for people to start having independent minds and to be willing to speak, not to live on past anger and violence. We need to accept love and peace; to peacefully fight for it, but not with swords drawn, but with the caps of our pens back, upon hitting the first note of a song, or the stroke of a paintbrush, in the dig of shovel in the ground. That is the only way.
I encourage you to turn your back on the Internet, and extend your arms to other humans and animals. We are all a glimpse of hope and light in the darkness. We are born, and then we die, and we are returned to that darkness. The Internet is merely an illusion, and in investing in an illusion, we forget what is really important, and that is love.
