Internet: A Great Advantage for Current Youth.

I feel optimistic about the youth today because most of the youth in North America have an advantage that some decades before, only the privileged guys had. One of them is Internet. According to Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Univeersity, in 2013, “95% of American teens use the internet”. When I studied the college, Internet began to be commercial for everyone. However, throughout some years, Internet service was extremely slow, limited and its information was very poor. So, libraries and their books such as encyclopedias were much better information sources than internet. Actually, most of my teachers forbade internet as evidence. Nowadays, the youth enjoy a much better internet service with several benefits. Some advantages of this service are:

 

Availability of Knowledge. Internet is a great information resource. It is one of the fastest and easiest way to find almost any kind of information which helps to improve a personal knowledge. Some years ago, students had to go to a library, search information in books and go back at home. Nowadays, American youth is able to find such information and improve their knowledge only with turning on a computer and type a word to find the information.

www.dreamsite.com

Communication. Communication is much easier and cheaper (or free) for youth today. When internet began to be public, the only way to be communicated was by chats where the user had to type everything. Nowadays, the youth enjoy much better and comfortable ways to be communicated such as Skype or Yahoo. So, the youth is able to talk and see another person in real time without paying.

 

http://phys.org/news/2010-12-skype-recovering-major-outage.html

 

Asking a question. Some decades before, the youth had to go physically with other person and ask. That means to spend time, money and energy. Nowadays, youth is able to ask a question to billions of people very easy. Internet has many websites, such as Yahoo, where youth are able to ask whatever they want. This is very helpful to do it easy and quickly, but it is also helpful for questions that are not very appropriate or are not really accepted by adults, such as questions about the sex, drugs, etc.

http://rickysays.com/images/yahoo-best-answer.png

 

Hide identity. This is a great tool that youth is able to use with internet. According to the web Do something “nearly 43% of kids have been bullied online”. A smart way to avoid such problem is hiding a personal identity. By means of internet, youth are able to put a false name, false address, false phone, etc. The result: If someone try to bully another person, then the victim is able to create a new identity, forget the old one and avoid more bullying. Someone may ask: using another address, the person who lives there would suffer the consequences. Solution: Use a non-existing address or phone. For example: if the street has until the number 5000, then use the number 6000. Hiding identity is an easy and helpful tool that any youth is able to use in Internet.

http://hck2.com/sites/default/files/anonymity-comments.jpeg

Internet is a good reason to feel optimistic about the youth today.

References 

Bist, Shorya. Youthofest. 19 January 2013. <http://youthofest.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-internet/>.

Society, Berkman Center for Internet &. Berkman Center for Internet & Society. 13 March 2013. <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications/2013/teens_and_technology>.

Something, Do. Do Someting. n.d. <https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-cyber-bullying>.