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Joseph Bunny

Professor Jennifer Rodrick

English 115

6 October 2017

Dont Fall on your Sword

The internet is like alcohol in a way. If you want to be a loner, you can be more alone. If

you want to connect, it makes it easier to connect. The vast internet has been a tool and a weapon

throughout the years it has been around. It could make day to day living much easier, like when

your phone reminds you you have a doctors appointment at three the next day. On the other hand

technology can totally ruin your day, like when your car refuses to start and you need to drive to

school to take your final. Technology is a good servant but a bad master says American writer

Gretchen Rubin. Technology has consequences that can be positive or negative depending on

how we use it. Due to the choices people have already made, we have changes in the way we act

with other people. Technology has affected our identity by changing the way we interact face to

face, commit crimes and even date because it removes the much of the emotional connection that

is experienced with social human interaction.

We have impacted the way we do things in real life due to the internet. The internet has

lead to weaker social interactions because the internet has reduced the need to leave the home.

Due to the internet, people have been encouraged to stay at home because everything that needed

to be done outside the home are now accessible in the home. Things such as work, friendships,

romantic relations, and even banking. This is stopping us from having social interactions and

weakening our real life interactions. A study was conducted by a teacher, J. Richardson, to see
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the impact of smartphones on his classroom. He teaches theatre, and this is what he said, the

freedom of choice and control that students associate with their use of smartphonesshapes the

way in which they experience and respond to live theatre (Richardson, 2014). He also states

later on the smartphones even affect the way we watch theatre due to the temptation to check our

phones during a performance. He believes that smartphones have affected the way the students

acted in plays. I believe this is due to a separation from reality. It is easy to make some believe

something in an edited video with special effects and music production but that same impact

from a video must be done through a play. The play must encompass the emotion that you can't

get from looking at a glass screen. Another studied backed up Richardson's study when it was

found that Facebook users reported to have lower mean GPA averages and reported spending

fewer hours per week studying on average than Facebook nonusers. The internet is affecting

even things like school work. The internet is a huge distractor that sucks our time away from us.

If we are continuously distracted by something it will stop us from taking in reality. Our

responsibilities seem to just fade away, like they just don't exist. This affects our identity because

when our mind detach from reality we begin to do things and think differently than we would if

we were completely aware of our real life surroundings.

Another impact that has changed the way we live is the increase of cyber crimes.

According to Bureau of Justice Statistics In 2005, among 7,818 businesses: 67% detected at

least one cybercrime, nearly 60% detected one or more types of cyber attack, 11% detected cyber

theft, 24% detected other computer security incidents, most businesses did not report cyber

attacks to law enforcement authorities. The ammoun to businesses that have experienced cyber

crimes is overwhelming. The internet has created new ways to steal and i am only lead to believe
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that that has gone up since 2005. People you talk to willingly share that they download music

illegally and they download movies in the same manner. This not only harms the industry they

are stealing from but also the government will lose their trust in us. People's information has

been hacked to the point of identity theft. The internet makes it now easier to access thing like

social security information and addresses that it lowers the security and privacy for the user.

People have hacked into other countries information making the internet possibly the place

where war can start. Cyber war is something that become increasingly more possible to occur. If

the United States hack Russia for instance, instead of Russia fighting back with weapons, all they

need to do is hack us back. It will become a continues cycle of hacking each other till one

surrenders. It doesnt help that the government is hiding thing from the people. Now going back

to the statistics it also shows that businesses arent reporting these crimes. Because cyber attack

are not face to face it removes the urgency that is cause by stealing in real life. In cyber attacks

there isn't someone putting a gun to your head saying to hand over your product. It happens very

suddenly but it may not even become apparent till inventory is done or someone finds the

missing goods. Because of this lack of urgency people don't report this to law enforcement. We

need to feel this urgency to ensure our safety and our businesses safety. This affects our identity

because it changes the way we feel about urgency in real life. It lowers our confidence online and

lowers our trust with people.

Another thing that has been affected by the internet is romantic relationships and dating.

This is something that has been greatly changed because of the internet. Some statistics show

that, one-third of people who have used online dating have never actually gone on a date with

someone they met on these sites. The increasing use of dating sites have increased the amount
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of dates we go on but have lowered the amount of successful date that we go on. Now that it is so

easy to meet people, we have lost the value of meeting someone new. Cheating also has gone up

because it is so easy to meet different people. I am not against meeting new people but when it

affects the the value of meeting someone new it changes the trust we must have with others. We

have to go into different situations differently. Another reason why online dating affects our

identities is by make people who use dating sites only bring up the good things about them. For

example a 24 year old girl can play the piano really well, she will tend to put that on her page but

she wont write that she didn't graduate college. This could also bring out lying about yourself. I

could go on a dating website and say all the right things to get a date with someone else but lying

about myself in the process. This is why dates are so unsuccessful. People change who they

really are for what they want to be. Wanting to be a better person is great but when you lie to

others and lie to yourself, thats when it is harmful and should not be tolerated. Now going to the

video that is under this document. He talks about how apps like Tinder effect the self-esteem of

men. When you know some people are judging you quickly by appearance it's hard not to think

that maybe you don't look good enough and studies show that men experience this more than

women. When someone isn't getting a lot of matches it's obvious that people don't really like you

so this does hurt. Especially with men having a much higher suicide rate than women this is

somewhat correlates to their self esteem. Now that online dating is so prominent with people in

this generation, it may be affecting the men in our generation and the more that men do online

dating the suicide rate may go up even more.

Now that we see how people change because of the internet we can see how it affect the

way they have to handle themselves. Since we are encouraged in today age to stay home we are
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more independent to people but also more dependant to technology. Now that crimes are easier

to do because of detachment from reality it changes the way people have to trust each other or

maybe even how they see themselves. People have to also worry about the way they look when

meeting other people on dating website, hiding parts of their life they dont like and lowering

their self esteem. All in all, the internet is a wonderful tool until we use it against each other and

that is change who we are. Its changing who we are as friends, spouses, parents and most of all it

is changing who we are to ourselves. Until we use technology to change ourselves to be better

people, we will continuously fall on our swords and use it for harm.
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Works Cited

1. Richardson, J. (2014). Powerful devices: How teens smartphones disrupt power in

the theatre, classroom, and beyond. Learning, Media and Technology, 39(3), 368-385.

doi:10.1080/17439884.2013.867867

2. Smith, Aaron, and Monica Anderson. 5 Facts about Online Dating. Pew Research

Center, 29 Feb. 2016,

www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/29/5-facts-about-online-dating/.

3. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Cybercrime. Cybercrime, Bureau of Justice Statistics,

13 July 2017, www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=41.