day 08, and the influence of the internet & social networking

:) proud of me guys? CONSECUTIVE POST!

DAY 08: Short term goals for this month and why.

I'm going to define 'this month' as the next 30 days. I guess I will try to finish the 30 day challenge lol, because it's what I do...? I'll study for my exams, because I want to ace my exams. I will ace my SAT II, because I studied, and I will ace my school exams, because I studied, and be awesome as I usually am, because I usually am.

Now I'm going to talk about the world of the internet. It's actually almost like an alternate world, you always hear about people getting sucked into their virtual WoW lives or w/e and ignoring the real world. But actually the internet has a huge influence on our lives whether we like it or not. Although some people wouldn't like to admit it, since it's something that does not technically exist; the internet world is like a fantasy. But as Kyle from South Park once said,

...It's all real. Think about it. Haven't Luke Skywalker and Santa Claus affected your lives more than most real people in this room? I mean, whether Jesus is real or not, he... he's had a bigger impact on the world than any of us have. And the same could be said of Bugs Bunny and, a-and Superman and Harry Potter. They've changed my life, changed the way I act on the Earth. Doesn't that make them kind of "real." They might be imaginary, but, but they're more important than most of us here. And they're all gonna be around long after we're dead. So in a way, those things are more realer than any of us.

K so it's not exactly fitting here, but you get the point. The internet affects our daily lives in ways we don't even realise. 1 in 14 people in the world have a facebook account. That's about 500 million people... In a world where you no longer ask for a guy's number when you meet them but add him on facebook, after having stalked his page and going through his photos many times prior to meeting him, it's practically impossible to be kept in the loop if you don't have a facebook profile. I mean I know people who don't have fb pages, and I'm sure a lot of you do too, because they don't want to be mainstream or something, but it's becoming more and more of an actual necessity. It's how we get our news and contact our friends. Within half an hour of the Christchurch earthquake, before the media had even heard about it yet, I had posts on my front page, "OMG EARTHQUAKE!" "HOLY CRAP THAT WAS A MASSIVE QUAKE" "Anyone else feel something just then?"

Of course it's not healthy to ONLY communicate over facebook, but it's really something that it seems 90% of everyone I meet has. These days I hear a lot "oh I think I've seen you around on facebook" or "it was cool to meet you, I'll add you on facebook." It's practically an assumption that strangers on the street will have a facebook. If you search the names of anyone you know in nz, chances are they will turn up on facebook. Seriously, even the models off NZ's next top model. I know, my friend tried it.

Then, as you would serve fries and coke with a hamburger, there are the side dishes to the main meal of facebook as well. Things like twitter, blogspot, tumblr, formspring. Not everyone has one, but a lot of people do, and usually if your friends have one then you'll get one too. Social networking is really becoming huge. I remember when everyone was into bebo, I had about 100 friends; within the first 3 weeks of everyone joining facebook it had grown to 250. Social networking can't work without the people; I got a facebook during the bebo phase, and I had like 8 friends for a long time before everyone got into it. It's kind of like an MMORPG, not fun unless everyone plays.

I sometimes wonder what it will be like in the future when the internet no longer exists. It seems far fetched but actually I'm sure something will eventually come about that renders the internet obsolete. I'm going to leave you with a conversation between shilin and one of her friends (found it on her blog):

SHHHH says (12:09 AM):
*feels weird to be the first generation for every web technology
*imagine when we’re 50
*and our kids go like why’s there 500 other people with the same name
*as me
*or like why is every username taken
Alex says (12:10 AM):
*lol
SHHHH says (12:10 AM):
*become meaningless to have a facebook url
*because every good one woudl be taken
*every domain name would be taken
*and there’s no reset or wipe button
*need internet 2.0 :)
Alex says (12:11 AM):
*someonoe will create
*a new net
*i’ll be
*spidernet
*or outernet
*outernet
Alex says (12:14 AM):
*it’ll just be built on top of internet
*andthan
*internet would be like umm
*ruins
*\:)/
SHHHH says (12:14 AM):
*wtf ruins :(!!!
*today’s archeological dig discovered another part of the internet
*buried with thousands of ancient japan style artworks called anime
Alex says (12:16 AM):
*:)!!
*recent dicovery shoes anime shares a close relation
*w/ cartoons inthe us
*shows**
SHHHH says (12:18 AM):
*controvercial pdf found that debates the difference between anime and cartoon
*mysteriously large amounts of ancient artworks pertaining to a not yet discovered species called mudkip
Alex says (12:19 AM):
*a surprising discovery found in the ruins of the internet today
*old shrines of mudkip have been discovered
SHHHH says (12:20 AM):
*more volumes of the literature masterpiece “bleach” has been found
*swordgun discovered and our engineer has not yet deciphered its intricate technology
Alex says (12:23 AM):
*the outernet has been attack by what were once called forum trolls
*these forum trolls have infected more than 50% of the outernets population
*creating more forum trolls
*the horror
*poor future