Internet, Internet Everywhere!

In Steve Johnson’s writing about the internet, he states that it has been beneficial to us in that it has made us more participatory both cognitively and socially. I agree with him in this because with television, I usually would just watch is brainlessly and even fall asleep to certain shows; but when I use the internet, I am usually engaged the whole time because I constantly have to be clicking or scrolling through things to get to whatever I want to see. Also, I believe that is beneficial to me cognitively because it has challenged me to learn how to solve problems using technology. I am not a very tech-savvy person so using a new search engine or other tool the internet provides is always a challenge for me and often requires that I use a few problem solving skills in the process in order to figure out what I am doing wrong or what I need to perform to get my computer doing what I want it to. Also, with Facebook for example, I have been able to be more social. I never really used to keep

up as much with what’s going on in the lives of my friends or family from different states besides the occasional visit, and now Facebook has helped me to keep in touch better with them pretty much on a daily regimen. I am even able to keep contact easily with some of the friends I have in other countries. The bad side to this, though, is that now that I have the internet at my fingertips all the time (literally with my smart phone) I tend to become a little obsessed with always checking emails and social networking sites. I believe this to be bad for me because I’ll be so absorbed in finding out the latest news or seeing so-and-so’s vacation pictures, etc. that I’ll keep myself up late at night browsing. Also, I’ve gotten a little lazy with figuring things out on my own and have started googling absolutely everything when I’m not sure of something. Although it is very convenient, I feel like I might be taking too much advantage of having it…and I’m not too sure if that’s very good for me cognitively or socially.