My early experiences with the Internet (Revised)

I absolutely loved the Internet when I was a kid. It opened the door to a whole new world just waiting to be explored. The Internet influenced both my school and personal life as a child. As I learned more of the things available on the Internet, I began to use the tools I found to improve my schoolwork. In ways similar to Vannevar Bush’s vision of the memex, I could quickly and easily find information that would have taken me exponentially longer digging through textbooks. I could also use other services to interact with my friends online. As a child, I thought that the Internet was a fantastic source of unlimited entertainment as well as information. The Internet was just awesome.

My first experience with the Internet was in elementary school. Our school did not yet have a computer lab, so most of my Internet access was limited to my friends’ houses and my parents’ house. I mainly used a dial-up modem on AOL at home. My friends and I would talk during the evenings and on weekends via AOL Instant Messenger and chat rooms. I thought it was one of the most amazing things in the world when we figured out that we could make our own chat rooms and invite only our friends from school. Until this point, I did not use the Internet very often and I primarily only used it to only to talk to people. However, my opinion of the Internet was forever changed in middle school when we discovered that we could play games together online via websites like pogo.com. This discovery made me begin to realize the potential of the Internet. Suddenly the Internet was more than a glorified text messaging serving (although I didn’t know what text messaging was at that time); it was a brand new “world” with endless possibilities. This was around the time when I started exploring the Internet and discovering neat things like Yahoo. I also stopped using AOL and switched to Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer was much faster than AOL and it allowed me to access more of the web.

My early opinion the Internet was similar to Vannevar Bush’s dream of the memex. He envisioned a device that would allow people to have easy to access information and photographs from around the world. I think one of his primary motivations was to unlock the potential for scholars to use the research of others to further their own research for the betterment of everyone. For example, he wanted a chemist working in the U.S. to be able to access the work of a biologist in Europe in the hopes that it would help cure diseases and develop new lifesaving medicines. This dynamic also greatly benefited me, but on a much smaller scale. The Internet made my school life much easier. This was especially true when I had to write papers. There were guides explaining how to format a paper, how to properly document citations, and other helpful tips. I did not have to spend hours at the library sifting through hundreds of pages of books to find information; I could get almost all of the data that I needed with a quick Yahoo search. I also found a few websites dedicated to helping students with math and science related problems. For example, you could submit a math problem to the site and they would post a detailed explanation of how to solve it. Although I never submitted anything myself, I still found it helpful to read the responses to problems other people had sent in. I think Bush would be pleased to know that his device would spur the creation of the World Wide Web, which allows people to work together towards common goals.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s argument in Fire-Worship is that as technology advances, the “traditional” ways of doing things become obsolete. He believed that the wood stove would erode social life by replacing the communal act of gathering around an open fire with a more impersonal alternative. In much the same way, modern critics argue that the Internet is destroying the art of conversation, and social life more broadly. When I first started using the Internet, I did not think it threatened social life at all. If anything, it enhanced it. Before any of us had cars or cell phones, our ability to socialize in person outside of school and sports was extremely limited. I could still hang out with the kids in my neighborhood, but my parents would always make me come in at dark. The Internet allowed my friends and I to “hang out” online after dark. This led to more, although much different, types social interaction that would have been impossible without the Internet.

My early experiences with the Internet were almost always positive. When I first began exploring the Internet, the door was suddenly opened for me to opportunities that would otherwise have been impossible. I could go online to find information, learn how to do math problems, talk to my friends, and myriad other things. I think the Internet met and exceeded Bush’s idea for the memex’s potential. He envisioned a device that would enhance the ability of researchers to advance their work. The Internet is truly the best way for people around the world to communicate with and benefit from one another’s knowledge and experience.