Living in a Digital Culture: Trolling the Internet Got Me This Job?!?

You are looking through a bookstore (you know, the one that is left after all of the rest have gone out of business) and you come upon Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. You recognize the name (remembering it is a famous novel or movie…or both? You don’t know, but nevertheless you pick it up) and open it to see if you would like it. A look of horror creeps across your face as you slowly realize that the language is too dense and heavy for you to even want to read. Why is this? You remember a time when a book like Gone With the Wind would have been a pleasure to read, its lengthy prose and dense language wouldn’t have been a problem. But after hours of jumping around on the internet your habits have changed and now you can’t stand the sight of a book that requires so much concentration. Has the internet ruined my generation, generations past and all of the ones to come? No, the internet is an advance in society that has revolutionized the world for the better and is an advance that should not be looked down upon. Just like Socrates criticized written word because he thought it would make people’s memory worse, modern day critics of the internet say that it is changing to way people process dense language and data. But, just like written word changed the world for the better, so has the internet. And it will continue to be something that revolutionizes the world. So far the benefits of the internet including the ability to access millions of previously unattainable resources out way any negatives that have arisen on top of the fact that the internet is now a staple of our society (and is here to stay).

Above: Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

            The internet got me my first internship. Doesn’t that seem strange? How would trolling the internet for hours have gotten me a job when it seems like just the opposite should be true? Having an interest in fashion I always looked at magazines like Vogue and Harpers Bazaar, but the knowledge I could gain from these magazines were limited to what the editors and writers wanted me to read. What if I wanted to know what Rick Owens’ bedroom looked like or what kind of dogs Jack and Lazaro of Proenza Schouler have? Well, the internet gave me the access to find this information. The internet was a giant fashion encyclopedia to me and I would spend hours scrounging through thousands of websites just absorbing data. Because of this, when I met my now former boss and my mentor I actually impressed her with my peculiar knowledge of a random fact that included world famous ice sculptures creating the Fall/Winter Chanel 2010 runway. I was asked to intern on the spot, something that has set me on the track to have an amazing career in fashion. At the time I was just a 16 year old nobody that had no connections in the fashion world, but something that I did have was access, access to valuable information that I culled from random sights on the internet. This is just one amazing thing that has happened to me because of the internet, but I can think of hundreds more. What is important to note is not just that the internet can do amazing things for people, but also that the internet is now a permanent part of society.

Above: Chanel Fall/Winter 2010

            

The internet has permeated every part of modern day society, firmly planting its roots into the lives of most of the people on earth. This is just the natural course of society advancing.  The internet has created a technological revolution just like the way the typewriter and the printing press created a technological ripple in society when they were first introduced. In the end, both the typewriter and printing press revolutionized society and became a permanent step in the staircase that is the history of technology/society. This is what has happened with the internet, it also is now a step in the very same staircase (and a very large step might I add) that both the typewriter and printing press are a part of. What has happened with the internet is that it has become an unavoidable part of society; it is a natural advance that will lead to new ideas, technologies and much more. The world is constantly moving forward with new advancements happening every second and I can’t wait to see what new advancements stem from the internet.

Bibliography: Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The Atlantic. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2012. <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/>.