With the widespread dependence on it, the question must be raised. What is the Internet for?

Many argue over this question. Some claim that the internet has become nothing more than a recreational devise where as others claim it to be an educational and fundamental working tool.

Google is a search engine, arguably the most famous. On a search engine, one simply types in a word of phrase and the engine finds sites that match the terms of your search. Anything you wish to know is at your fingertips. Google is the top visited web site (mostpopularwebsites.net). Being a tool to look things up, one may think this meant that the web is being used for educational purposes. However, on the Zeitgeist 2008, a list released but Google themselves, the top searched items are not all educational. The global list includes Sarah Palin, Obama, and Beijing 2008, all of which can be considered somewhat educational, but the top ten list is rounded out with recreational topics like Heath Ledger, Facebook Login, and Jonas Brothers. The 2009 Zeitgeist is actually a lot more recreational, consisting of Facebook, Twitter, Lady GaGa, and topped with Michael Jackson. This could be due to the fact that there was not a presidential election or Olympics this year. But not only did Michael Jackson and the sequel to Twilight top the Google list but they also topped the yahoo, another popular search engine, list. This is strong support for the augment that the internet is a recreational tool.

In several interview recently conducted, the questions were asked how often do you get on the internet and what percent of time you spend online is recreational and what percent is work/school related? Most answered that they got online at least once a day, often times up to three or four times a day in which time hours where spent online. There was only one case were a girl did not own the internet at home so she could only get on during school on the weekdays. Of the group questioned the majority where college students, a few where high school students, and a two where high school graduates not yet, but planning to, attending college. When asked how much time they spent on time it varied depending on whether they where in school or not. The two not attending school said that they spent 95 to 100 percent of there time online doing recreational things. The subjects attending school ranged in their answers from 95 to sixty percent recreational. It seemed that the larger the students work load or even the variation of their college majors affect how much they used the internet for school (Personal Interviews).

These same people where asked what their routine was when they signed online. Almost all of them said that they signed into some kind of instant messenger or email site. The site most people said the sign onto a social networking site called Facebook. The next thing most commonly listed after that is some form of school work, whether it is research of checking for emails from their teachers (Personal interviews). With the wide spread use of the internet it is no longer surprising to hear of online school work. In high school it seems as though it is now mandatory to have access to the internet. Though it is never said to be mandatory, it would be hard to do a research paper, now required by the state of California, without it.

After that more social network sites are listed as well as online music and video sites (Personal Interviews). Such sites as Pandora, a music site, Youtube, a video site, which where common in the interviews are also high visited sites. Youtube is the top video site on the web. It allows it’s users to upload video content and post it for others to see. On this site you can find funny videos, informational videos, and sometimes just plain random videos. Though this site can be informative it is often not viewed as a creditable source for research. Youtube is a very popular cited and is listed as the third most visited web site (mostpopularwebsites.net).

Pandora is another site mentioned in the interviews. It is a less known site but is one of the most popular for personal music play lists. This site only ranks 42 on the 50 most visited web sites (blog.sfaranda.com). Pandora allows people to go in and create there own personal online radio stations by typing in a song or artist name. The site then picks songs that are like the one requested and plays them in a row. If the listener dislikes a song they can tell Pandora and the song is removed from all future play lists. In an interview, a young lady clamed this is valuable because she can create her own station, full of songs she likes, and play it in the background while she does other things. Two other, both avid musician, one even a music major in college, claim this site is an invaluable tool to keep them focused.

The people interviewed where also asked the question what is your most visited site? The outstanding response was Facebook and Twitter. Only one answer did not contain one of these sites, the person answered yahoo. Facebook was started for college students to keep in touch with each other but it soon spread to much more than that. The former social networking site was Myspace, but in the recent years it would seem that Myspace has been dethroned by Facebook. Facebook is listed as taking the spots of five, three, and even two in several most visited lists. Myspace, who used to have these spots now takes nine, ten, and even twelve. (www.alexa.com/topsites, mostpopularwebsites.net, blog.sfaranda.com). The most common thing about Facebook mentioned in the interviews was the messaging system. Facebook has a message system that resembles an email system that is simple to use. This proved a popular form of communication (Personal Interviews).

Wickipedia is an online encyclopedia. It has listings on almost anything you can think of and is more up to date than classic encyclopedias. However, the problem with this site is that it allows users to edit the information on the page. In some cases this is useful, because you may have a scholar update facts that have recently be changed. The problem with this is the people who change things for fun. Most schools no longer view Wikipedia as a valid source. It still is, however, a good starting point for research. The pages often list the sites they get there information from so if one follows the links they can find credible sources that way. Wikipedia is listed as the seventh most popular site (mostpopularwebsites.net).

In the personal interviews, the question was asked do you feel that the internet is a large part of your life? why or why not? The answers in this section varied. Most consisted of yes it was a big part of their life but the reasons varied. Some claimed it their favorite mode of communication while others said it is simply entertainment. Communication was, however, mentioned by everyone. One person stated “I do feel that the internet is a large part of my life. I’m not one for talking on the phone. It’s so much easier to send email to someone rather than calling them. Internet, to me, is a way of communication and entertainment. With the internet, I don’t need things like television. I have everything on one computer screen…” (Personal interview).

Another question asked was what would you do if the internet disappeared for a week? Most said they would be sad or bored because of it but that their life would continue and they would live without it.

The last question asked was would you say you are “addicted” to any form of technology? In this case most answered confidently yes. Only one person answered no, but she said “I would say though that I’m very attached to my phone since it is my only line of communication with my fiancé while he is gone for months at a time.” The others all admitted they where addicted to some form of technology. Not all said they where addicted to the same thing though. Some listed their cell phones while others claimed the internet or computers and some even mentioned Ipods. One person clamed video games. Most, though, mentioned that the reason they where addicted to these devises was because they provided a form of communication, be it texting of messaging.

From all these findings you can see that the youth of today seems very engrained with technology and the use of the internet. Most of the findings lean towards the internet being used for mostly recreational items, but most who where interviewed claimed they would not be able to complete school without the internet.

So in hind site it may be safe to claim that the internet is a vessel for both recreation and work. The Internet is used for recreation and the support for this comes in the form of the overwhelming popularity of social sites (Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, etc.). These sites have grown to such popularity that it is not uncommon to hear them mentioned on your local news station. But even in this massive amount of social networking, there lies useful and helpful tools. There is an online dictionary (dictionary.com) and a variety of search engines that can give you a credible source of information with the click of a button (Google, Yahoo, Ask). Many of the sites out there are written for a teaching purpose, or to educate and inform people on an issue.

So, though many arguments can be brought up as to what the internet is for and why, there maybe a way to look to a middle ground. Why can’t it be both? Why can’t one have some fun and do some work all in one convenient place?

A bunch of clips I put together that spoof the sites I encountered the most in my research: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNwfzbOb-kk

Commentary by: Melissa Holly, Katie Holladay, and Tristan Bowman.

Songs: Where Are You Now by Honor Society and Friend by Kaitleyn.

I feel that I am a person who uses technology very often on a daily basis. The first thing I do when I wake up is check the cell phone I keep under my pillow to see if I have gotten a message. Sometimes I find that a friend has stayed up late and sent a message to me about who knows what, most often about their latest internet discovery.

The next part of my morning routine is, after I have rolled out of bed and found some food, it to go to my computer and get online. My thoughts are “What has been going on while I was asleep? Who posted something online?” Usually my first stop is the new phenomenon: Twitter. Probably my most visited site, it is the way I let my friends now what I’m doing, at almost ALL times, and the way I can see what they are doing and as thinking. Not only do I get to see what my friends are doing by “following” them, I can also set it up to follow the posting of my favorite celebrities that have their own page. The way this works is that you create an account then you get to post things that you are doing. Everyone who is “following” you gets to see the posts you put up. You also follow others, like I said earlier friends and whatever celebrities that have an account. To me Twitter is my link to some of the friends I don’t get to see anymore. To my dad, I’m just addicted. He says that anyone that can learn to send a Twitter post from their cell phone should be declared a “Twitter tweaker”.

I also check the social networking site Facebook. This site has a completely different group of friends, and has different functions. This site allows me to interact more with my friends, messaging them, posting a comment on their home page and different, more elaborate things like that.

After I have checked those things I usually start instant messaging my best friend, Katie. Instant messaging is a devise where you can send messages back and forth between to people instantly over the internet. My best friend and I can spend hours sending messages back and forth, ranging from inside jokes to thoughts we had overnight. We talk about the music we now have playing from our computers and the videos we watch on YouTube, a site where anyone can put up videos they have made. Both of us are hopping to one day be published authors so we spend a lot of time typing away in a word document and sending our stuff back and forth.

It is interesting to look at how much I use technology in the first twenty minutes of my day. I know I am not the only one who uses technology so excessively; this way of living has spread over the world.

Briefly I mentioned my use of social networking cites. This, however, is what I spend most of my free time doing. I have always thought of my use of social networking cites as me keeping in touch with friends. And that is true. I have a couple friends from school who are a couple years younger than me. I graduated high school, where I met them, but they did not. So I have gone on to college and don’t really have the time to go see them. I still talk to them though, on Twitter. I follow them and they follow me. In this way I still feel really connected with them, I can read the posts they put up about what they are doing and I can respond and visa-versa. It is not uncommon for us to have a conversation over our posts. With out this I would be much less connected to them and I would feel as if I had in a way lost my friends. On the other hand I don’t only use Twitter to see what my friends are doing. The official people that run Twitter have gone out and verified each account that is a celebrity’s. Many celebrities are on Twitter and you can follow them so that you can also see what they are doing. I like this aspect of Twitter because I think it is making people look at celebrities as other human beings and not just idolized objects. With this function of Twitter, people get to see the inside thoughts and feelings. This is a humanizing thing and I think it benefits them. And it’s just really cool to sign on and see a post from you favorite singer. It makes you feel as if they are talking right to you and sometimes, if you reply to them while they are online, they actually do post back. But back to the friend thing. In a way, being able to put your thoughts and feelings up for others to see is a gratifying thing. Everyone likes to be heard, likes to be listened to. When someone is following you, you know they are getting your posts and more than likely reading them. So you know your opinion is being heard. And more than that, you know, that for the most part, your followers agree with most of your ideas. If they didn’t they would get annoyed with your posts and would stop following you. So I use this cite a lot because it is a convenient way to keep in touch with my friends and let them know what I am doing and how I feel.

I also use a site called Facebook. This site is like Twitter in the fact that you post a “status” for others to see. But at the same time, Facebook is very different. It is much more elaborate. When you create an account you get a main “profile” page to let people know about you. It has a picture, your profile picture, to let others know how you are as well as other facts about you. This page, however, can only be viewed by people marked as your “friends”. To be someone’s friend, you must find that they have an account and then you send a request to them. When they get the request, they can chose to be your friend or to “ignore”, reject, it, giving the account holder control over who has access to their page. If they accept you then there are a lot of possibilities that open up. You can send your friend a private message, like a minny email system. Also you can “Write on there wall”. Everyone has a “wall” which is the main page of there profile. A friend can post a message on your wall, but this is public and anyone can see it. Another thing that Facebook has is a thing called “poke”. When you “poke” a friend, a little notification comes up telling them that and it basically just a way of letting them know you are thinking of them. One thing that many like about Facebook is that it has about a million little minny games and applications where you can collect “items” and send them to your friends. My favorite id “Pieces of Flair”, an application where you send virtual buttons that say things or have pictures on them to your friends and then collect buttons of your own. There are many little functions of Facebook that you discover the more you use it, but in all everything on the site is a way of communicating with your friends. Everything you do on Facebook is put up for your friends to see and comment on. I use this cite for much or the same reason I use Twitter. However, the group of friends I have on Facebook is actually a different group of friends. These friends I see a lot, and we often use Facebook as a way to organize get-togethers. This site’s function is more just a way of communication and a way to stay in touch, but I still use it for all the same reasons I use Twitter.

Social networking seems like pointless activities to many people. But in reality it is something that gives us something we wouldn’t otherwise have. It gives us a way to not only talk to, but interact with our friends when we can’t be there in person. Sometimes you just can’t get together but you can send them a message or a “gift” online. You can let your friends know what you are up to, even if you can be together. In a way, I think it makes you closer to your friends, or at least gives you the option to be closer. Whit out them we couldn’t interact nearly as much.

So in all, I know I use the internet a lot. But as much as I use it for these social things, I also use it for productive things. Most of my school work involves doing things online. I also use a computer for my “work”. I am hopping to one day be a published author, so my laptop is like my office. So although I spend most off my free time on social networking cites, some of my time that is free is use on the computer as well. Basically I live a life of technology. I do other things as well, but I do spend a lot of my time using some form of technology.

Like I said before, having your voice heard is a good feeling. Most of technology provides this, but most of all it comes from social networking. Not matter what site you’re on, if you have friends on that site it can be a very validating thing. You know that they are listing to you and interacting. These sites show that the people you have marked as friends really do care about you. They take the time to request being your friend. These sites all have that in common. They allow you to speak and know that people who care are listing. A great thing for everyone.

In my opinion, the most important part of this story is that not matter what you are up against, no matter how muchstronger they apper to be, never give up fighting for what you beleive in. this story is about Marcus Yallow, a boy in a technologiclly advanced world who ends up being kidnaped by his own government. He was captured and tourchered after a terriost attack on his home town of San Fransico. After they released him, they said that if he spoke about what happened, he would go away, forever. Marcus new this was wrong, that it was wrong to live in a world where the government had started to look at its own people as terroists and began to spy on their EVRY move. So Marcus started and “underground” internet, called the Xnet. it was a place that, as long as you had the system to run it on, you could access withiut having anyone be able to track you. it started as simple, just the net. but when stuff kept surfacing about people getting hurt and messed up by the DHS, Department of Homeland Security, marcus took it futher. There where many ways he and the freinds he had started to make, tried to mess with the DHS. Finally, Marcus told the story of his kidnaping and tourcher to a reporter. While he was on the run from the government for that, he found the evidence he needed to blow the lid off the whole thing. he knew he was in trouble and that this could cost him his life, but he found a way to get it to the reporter.

“That was when I knew that I couldn’t run.That was when I knew that I had to stay and fight.” (pg 227)

At this point Marcus was on his way out of town, a safe passage to somewhere he could hide and get away. He thought of his friends, still stuck in prision, he thought of his family, who had once thought him dead, and he realised you can’t win freedom without fighting for it. He realized one of my favorite asyings, though it was never stated these exact words, “Freedom isn’t free.” in the end he knew he had to be the one brave enough to stand up and fight or the country he loved would be stripped of its freedom.

“The point is, it’s over. The Governor has thrown the DHS out of the State, dismantled every checkpoint. The Attorney General has issued warrants for any law-enforcement officers involved in ’stress interrogations’ and secret imprisonments. They’ll go to jail, Marcus, and it’s because of what you did.” (pg 248)

After all he went through, after getting re-captured and tourchered again, it was his wrds and his actoins that finally got people to see what was happening and to stand up and stop it.

That is what I think this book is ment to teach us. it maybe hard, and it may hurt us, but if we have the chance to help others, we need to take it. it on;y takes one person to stand up and say “This is wronge! look at us! We need your help.” That one voice can do several things. it can inspire others to use their voices to, until there is so many standing up that it is impossible to look away. Or, it can be strong enough to be heard. But in all, it only takes that one voice to start the change. The one voice to protect our freedoms.

I feel that I am a person who uses technology very often on a daily basis. The first thing I do when I wake up is check the cell phone I keep under my pillow to see if I have gotten a message. Sometimes I find that a friend has stayed up late and sent a message to me about who knows what, most often about their latest internet discovery.

The next part of my morning routine is, after I have rolled out of bed and found some food, it to go to my computer and get online. My thoughts are “What has been going on while I was asleep? Who posted something online?” Usually my first stop is the new phenomenon: Twitter. Probably my most visited site, it is the way I let my friends now what I’m doing, at almost ALL times, and the way I can see what they are doing and as thinking. Not only do I get to see what my friends are doing by “following” them, I can also set it up to follow the posting of my favorite celebrities that have their own page. The way this works is that you create an account then you get to post things that you are doing. Everyone who is “following” you gets to see the posts you put up. You also follow others, like I said earlier friends and whatever celebrities that have an account. To me Twitter is my link to some of the friends I don’t get to see anymore. To my dad, I’m just addicted. He says that anyone that can learn to send a Twitter post from their cell phone should be declared a “Twitter tweaker”.

I also check the social networking site Facebook. This site has a completely different group of friends, and has different functions. This site allows me to interact more with my friends, messaging them, posting a comment on their home page and different, more elaborate things like that.

After I have checked those things I usually start instant messaging my best friend, Katie. Instant messaging is a devise where you can send messages back and forth between to people instantly over the internet. My best friend and I can spend hours sending messages back and forth, ranging from inside jokes to thoughts we had overnight. We talk about the music we now have playing from our computers and the videos we watch on YouTube, a cite where anyone can put up videos they have made. Both of us are hopping to one day be published authors so we spend a lot of time typing away in a word document and sending our stuff back and forth.

It is interesting to look at how much I use technology in the first twenty minutes of my day. I know I am not the only one who uses technology so excessively; this way of living has spread over the world.

Briefly I mentioned my use of social networking cites. This, however, is what I spend most of my free time doing. I have always thought of my use of social networking cites as me keeping in touch with friends. And that is true. I have a couple friends from school who are a couple years younger than me. I graduated high school, where I met them, but they did not. So I have gone on to college and don’t really have the time to go see them. I still talk to them though, on Twitter. I follow them and they follow me. In this way I still feel really connected with them, I can read the posts they put up about what they are doing and I can respond. They in turn, can read my posts and see what I am doing. It is not uncommon for us to have a conversation over our posts. With out this I would be much less connected to them and I would feel as if I had in a way lost my friends. On the other hand I don’t only use Twitter to see what my friends are doing. The official people that run Twitter have gone out and verified each account that is a celebrity. Many celebrities are on Twitter and you can follow them so that you can also see what they are doing. I like this aspect of Twitter because I think it is making people look at celebrities as other human beings and not just idolized objects. With this function of Twitter, people get to see the inside thoughts and feelings. This is a humanizing thing and I think it benefits them. And it’s just really cool to sign on and see a post from you favorite singer. It makes you feel as if they are talking right to you. But back to the friend thing. In a way, being able to put your thoughts and feelings up for others to see is a gratifying thing. Everyone likes to be heard, likes to be listened to. When someone is following you, you know they are getting your posts and more than likely reading them. So you know your opinion is being heard. And more than that, you know, that for the most part, your followers agree with most of your ideas. If they didn’t they would get annoyed with your posts and would stop following you. So I use this cite a lot because it is a convenient way to keep in touch with my friends and let them know what I am doing and how I feel.

I also use a cite called Facebook. This cite is like Twitter in the fact that you post a “status” for others to see. But at the same time, Facebook is very different. It is much more elaborate. When you create an account you get a main “profile” page to let people know about you. It has a picture, your profile picture, to let others know how you are as well as other facts about you. This page, however, can only be viewed by people marked as your “friends”. To be someone’s friend, you must find that they have an account and then you send a request to them. When they get the request, they can chose to be your friend or to “ignore”, reject, it. This gives the account holder control over who has access to there page. If they accept you then there are a lot of possibilities that open up. You can send your friend a private message, like a minny email system. Also you can “Write on there wall”. Everyone has a “wall” which is the main page of there profile. A friend can post a message on your wall, but this is public and anyone can see it. Another thing that Facebook has is a thing called “poke”. When you “poke” a friend, a little notification comes up telling them that and it basically just a way of letting them know you are thinking of them. One thing that many like about Facebook is that it has about a million little minny games and applications where you can collect “items” and send them to your friends. My favorite id “Pieces of Flair”, an application where you send virtual buttons that say things or have pictures on them to your friends and then collect buttons of your own. There are many little functions of Facebook that you discover the more you use it.  I use this cite for much or the same reason I use Twitter. However, the group of friends I have on Facebook is actually a different group of friends. These friends I see a lot, and we often use Facebook as a way to organize get-togethers. This cites function is more just a way of communication and a way to stay in touch, but I still use it for all the same reasons I use Twitter.

So in all, I know I use the internet a lot. But as much as I use it for these social things, I also use it for productive things. Most of my school work involves doing things online. I also use a computer for my “work”. I am hopping to one day be a published author, so my laptop is like my office. So although I spend most off my free time on social networking cites, some of my time that is free is use on the computer as well. Basically I live a life of technology. I do other things as well, but I do spend a lot of my time using some form of technology.