The Impact of the Internet on My Life

“But mom!” said the young boy of eight, “I know how to use a computer!” He watched, through the sea of plastic and styrofoam packaging, with eager anticipation as his mother and father unboxed their first computer, an Apple Macintosh Performa 638CD.

“This computer is for work, it is not a toy,” said his mother. “The school district has given me an email address, and I need this to check it.”

I’ll never forget the first time I used a computer of my own. I had played Oregon Trail on old Apple II machines at school, but, this Performa was different. It had an enormous 8 MB of memory, a blazing 66 MHz processor, and a spacious 500 MB hard drive, though, none of this could compare to the most important component of that machine for me. It was a 14.4 kbps dial-up modem.

My favorite music growing up became the symphony of that dial-up modem. Following the melody of PPP handshaking, accompanied by the low undertones of username and password authentication, an entire world was made available through a beige box sitting on a small desk. Knowing how to use this machine proved to be an invaluable skill throughout my years of education; learning did not end when the school bell rang. When I wanted to learn more about any particular topic I had studied in school, I simply went to Yahoo to research the topic. Mathematics, science, history, it was all available to me. The woeful inadequacies of my rural school’s library system became painfully evident throughout my years of elementary education. Our weekly library class attempted to teach us the significance of the Dewey Decimal System, and proper usage of the card catalog. In the fourth grade, I was assigned to do a report on space travel. I attempted to consult our elementary school’s most recent collection of Encyclopedia Britannica, dated 1965. As far as that collection of antiquated books was concerned, we hadn’t even landed on the moon yet. A quick Internet search quickly remedied the situation, providing my report with information on everything I needed, up to, and including, the most recent space shuttle missions. I also communicated with others my age in early JavaScript chat rooms, all of us simultaneously discovering this vast information resource available to us. It was this early experience with the Internet that enabled me to realize my interest in computers at a young age.

I then took my interest in computers and began a computer service at the age of 13. I did everything from basic PC repair, to Internet connection setup and small-scale networking. Word of my services spread, and by the time I had graduated from high school, I had been setting up and securing local area networks for area businesses, school districts, police departments, churches, and medical practices. I attempted to show the people I worked with what enhanced connectivity, not only internally, but to the Internet, made possible. In turn, it was through these experiences in working with people, consulting with them about their needs in a business environment, and applying technological solutions to fulfill those needs that I was able to decide what I wanted to do later in life.

I am not a computer science type of person. Working to merely develop technological solutions is not enough for me. I require the human element of the equation; I need to relate to the people who are going to be using the technology. It is this necessity that led me to the major of Information Sciences and Technology. Advancements in information technology are not made for the sole purpose of achieving greater amounts of data throughput. Information technology is entirely inseparable from the people who use it. Every bit of data transferred means something to somebody. Whether a request for background information on a crime suspect through a county’s crime reporting VPN network, or accessing remotely-stored digital X-Ray images, the productivity enhancements of instantaneous data access, regardless of physical location, are undeniable. The same holds true for academia. Having all my course materials consolidated through one online management interface greatly simplifies managing coursework.

Presently, I am a data convergence fanatic. I require my contact, calendar, and communications information to be universally accessible in as many places as technologically feasible. Upon my arrival here at Penn State, I spent hours configuring Microsoft Outlook to look to a mapped network drive for its data files, so my calendars and other information would be accessible from nearly anywhere on campus, as Outlook is designed to work in a local environment, solely on one machine. While this works, it seems entirely contradictory to the present trends in personal data management. With the advent of Web 2.0 technologies, such as the browser-based suite of software applications provided by Google, I believe local file storage will one day become obsolete. I foresee vital bits of information, such as one’s Google Account login credentials one day becoming nearly as important as one’s social security number. Even now, should the security of my Google Account be compromised, a potential identity thief would have access to a devastating amount of information. My bank account information is stored within Google Checkout. My Google Documents would be available for public viewing or deletion. Many personal and other sensitive emails, many of which contain login credentials to other online identities, as well as access to my PSU email account could be found in Gmail. For this reason, I think the number one future concern not just for myself, but the Internet as a whole will be the importance of data security. It’s undeniable that people are continually migrating more and more of their personal identities to the online realm, and assurance of the security of these identities will prove to be paramount.

As members of the first generation that truly grew up with the Internet, it can be safely said that it has had a profound impact on all our lives. Nearly everyone who used the Internet from a young age progressed with their friends through various stages. Most remember their first time using a search engine, as well as their first Hotmail account. Having your own email address provided an incredible sense of validation of oneself; you were somebody. Many proceeded to make “Expage” websites, while networking with one another though ICQ and AIM. Nearly everyone in our generation recalls the heyday of the Napster/Kazaa music downloading craze, the social networking craze, in which everyone seemed to get a Myspace at once, then finally the maturation of social networking, as our peers largely migrated from Myspace to Facebook. All of these represented the essence of what the Internet was, a place where we created content, it wasn’t fed to us. The Internet was ours, and still is, now, more so than ever.