Don't Believe The Doom & Gloom: The Internet Makes Lives Better!
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Dec 21 2017, 4:12 PM
Every single day there's some news piece, magazine articles, or blog post (ironically) about how the internet is ruining our lives. Apparently, it's taking up all of our time, making us more gullible, and turning us into socially inept hermits who never leave the house and obsessively check out Facebook and Twitter timelines. Well, there's probably a tiny percentage of the population for whom that's true, but for the rest of us, that couldn't be further from the case. In reality, the internet has been an amazing thing for the vast majority of people. If you're not totally convinced, here are just a few ways that the internet has improved all of our lives.
Education
There was a time when, if you didn't get the grades you needed at school, or didn't study particular subjects, you were never going to be able to learn anything after that. Sure, there were options like night school, but that wasn't always possible for a lot of people. Now, thanks to the internet, it's possible to learn just about any skill and get any qualifications that you need. Whether you want to learn how to build something in your home, or you want to find a new career path, everything Youtube tutorials to online masters degrees are right at your fingertips. We really have never had quite such amazing access to any and all knowledge.
Communication
Can you imagine living in a world where you couldn't talk to any of your friends and family whenever you wanted? It seems strange to say it, but that's the world many of us were living in before the internet. Sure, we could write letters and call people up but those required things like long waiting periods or aligning your schedules. Now, all you have to do is send a quick Facebook message to someone and, no matter where they are in the world, you're able to keep in touch with them as easily as if they were right next door.
Understanding
Most people, for the longest time, got their news from the newspaper. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, but it meant you were only ever getting your news from a single source, and usually one that was at least a little biased. Now, the ease with which the internet allows you to access any and all information means that you can not only get straight to the facts, but you can find information form a whole number of sources to reach the truth of the matter. Far from dumbing society down, people are now more politically, economically, culturally, and socially informed than ever before.
Of course, this is only a small sampling of the ways that the internet has made everyone's lives that much better. It's caused huge advances in plenty of other areas of life from medicine to romance. Every single day people are able to do things that would have been impossible even a couple of decades ago thanks to the internet. So the next time someone tries to tell you that the internet is destroying society, you can remind them all of the ways that it's made it so much better.
Every single day there's some news piece, magazine articles, or blog post (ironically) about how the internet is ruining our lives. Apparently, it's taking up all of our time, making us more gullible, and turning us into socially inept hermits who never leave the house and obsessively check out Facebook and Twitter timelines. Well, there's probably a tiny percentage of the population for whom that's true, but for the rest of us, that couldn't be further from the case. In reality, the internet has been an amazing thing for the vast majority of people. If you're not totally convinced, here are just a few ways that the internet has improved all of our lives.
Education
There was a time when, if you didn't get the grades you needed at school, or didn't study particular subjects, you were never going to be able to learn anything after that. Sure, there were options like night school, but that wasn't always possible for a lot of people. Now, thanks to the internet, it's possible to learn just about any skill and get any qualifications that you need. Whether you want to learn how to build something in your home, or you want to find a new career path, everything Youtube tutorials to online masters degrees are right at your fingertips. We really have never had quite such amazing access to any and all knowledge.
Communication
Can you imagine living in a world where you couldn't talk to any of your friends and family whenever you wanted? It seems strange to say it, but that's the world many of us were living in before the internet. Sure, we could write letters and call people up but those required things like long waiting periods or aligning your schedules. Now, all you have to do is send a quick Facebook message to someone and, no matter where they are in the world, you're able to keep in touch with them as easily as if they were right next door.
Understanding
Most people, for the longest time, got their news from the newspaper. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, but it meant you were only ever getting your news from a single source, and usually one that was at least a little biased. Now, the ease with which the internet allows you to access any and all information means that you can not only get straight to the facts, but you can find information form a whole number of sources to reach the truth of the matter. Far from dumbing society down, people are now more politically, economically, culturally, and socially informed than ever before.
Of course, this is only a small sampling of the ways that the internet has made everyone's lives that much better. It's caused huge advances in plenty of other areas of life from medicine to romance. Every single day people are able to do things that would have been impossible even a couple of decades ago thanks to the internet. So the next time someone tries to tell you that the internet is destroying society, you can remind them all of the ways that it's made it so much better.
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