Is the Internet Consuming Our Lives?

We live in an era where technology rules the land. Let’s face it. We love it. We love coming home, watching our TVs, talking and texting our friends on our fancy cell phones, taking hundreds of digital pictures, and surfing the web. I love technology—I certainly won’t deny that. I had a friend once tell me that I was the reason the Apple Company was still in business. Yes, I do love Apple products, and I’m not ashamed to say so. I currently own a MacBook Pro, an 80 GB iPod, and iPod shuffle, and and iPhone. But is our love of technology healthy?

Let’s be honest with ourselves. I mean really honest. How often do you just simply come home, do your homework and then read a good book? I’ll be the first to say that I very rarely do that. In fact, usually the first thing I do when I get home is not even my homework—I usually immediately check my Facebook the moment I walk in the door. If I don’t check my Facebook first it’s because I’ve got a good TV show I’ve been obsessively watching on DVD (recently it’s been Heroes). But hey, once I get that Facebook check out of the way, I get cracking down to business…right. Actually, what usually ends up happening is that I do my homework. However, while I do my homework at my desk, I usually end up checking my Facebook every fifteen minutes—you know, just in case someone posted on my wall in that short amount of time.  I've checked my Facebook 4 times throughout the writing of this blog entry--no joke.

But what’s really sad is that sometimes, I find myself lost in Facebook. I’ll start by just looking at my profile, then clicking on someone else’s, and so on and so forth, and before you know it—it’s been an hour and a half. That’s an hour and a half of my life I’ll never get back. At night, I’ll be dead tired coming in from some activity, and I’ll check my Facebook for a few minutes just before I go to bed—except those few minutes turn into hours and suddenly I’m no longer tired.

It’s not just Facebook though. YouTube is a powerful force as well. I watch one video, I’ll see a link to another interesting one, and before you know it I’m a lost cause. The Internet has consumed me. The Internet is one of the biggest reasons I became the biggest procrastinator ever in High School. The Internet always gave me an excuse to not do my homework—it was an escape from the real world. I mean seriously, what am I doing RIGHT now? I’m writing a blog post—FOR THE INTERNET!

Again, I LOVE technology, and I love the Internet. But it can be a powerful force—an addiction. I am convinced it can consume lives—take away from precious time we have to be doing bigger and better things. Much better things indeed.