A Growing Problem
By: Madie Blancaflor
The great comedian, Bill Engvall once said, “Stupid people should have to wear signs that just say “I’m stupid.’ That way you wouldn’t rely on them would you? You wouldn’t ask them anything.” The same thing should go for the many problems of cyber communication. If only every misleading pop-up ad and possibly threatening site online had a sign that said, “STOP, I’m dangerous!” the world of virtual reality would be a much safer place. From cyber rejection to identity theft to spending more money on your health care than on your house, cyber communication has many problems and dangers. Cyber communication is gaining dominance and it’s becoming A large scale problem.
Statistics on crunchgear.com show that the average person spends anywhere from 14 to 31 hours online a week. That’s about how many hours some people WORK weekly. CrunchgeAr.com also states that out of those 14 to 31 hours you view an average of 540 pop-up ads. Itpro.com states that 98% of your inbox is junk mail. So you end up spending more time viewing media ads than actually surfing the web. Half of those ads are probably connected to viruses too. Those viruses can lead to identity theft. Who wants a 45 year old creep with SER-I-OUS hygiene problems pretending to be you? The Federal Trade Commission estimates that up to 9 million people are victims of identity theft, and that’s only in the U.S.
Cyber communication can also be a danger to your health. Six hours and thirty minutes; that’s about how long you spend on Facebook a week. In addition to those 6 and a half hours you spend three and a half hours instant messaging your buddies; you waste an average of two hours on YouTube; and at least one and a half hours goes to sites that well, SHOULD NOT be viewed. Now if you add all that time spent online with the amount of time you spend at school or work, it doesn’t leave much time for physical activity. That leads to a sedentary lifestyle. A sedentary lifestyle leads to obesity and that just leads to big bucks spent on health care later in life. Cyber communication indirectly and accidentally encourages sedentary lifestyles. Now that is a major problem.
Many of you are probably thinking, “Who in their right minds would care about pop-up ads and health care when we’re teenagers?” But trust me; there are plenty of drawbacks to cyber communication that teens especially should be interested in. First off, it gives guys (or girls) at least 5 ways to reject, dump, and/or humiliate you, none of which actually requiring them to look you in the eye while doing it. I mean there’s texting, instant messaging, Emailing, social networking, chat forums…the list goes on and on. Secondly, it affects you getting into college. If you practice bad grammar the way you do online in your applications and essays, you can kiss those four years of no-parent freedom goodbye. You’ll end up living with your parents until you’re 40! Plus, without that college degree, how in the world are you going to pay for all of that health care I talked about earlier? Another thing is that when you talk in “IM” or how most people do online, you get annoying- fast. Nothing is worse than a sixteen year old girl talking like this: “OMG gf! Like he thinks ima gona lik take him bck lik after that? Rofl…IKR?!? I mean he lik had the lik nerve to lik call me annoying. ME? Annoying? YR! Ya, gf. Ima brb, cd9, ttfn, ttyl!” You could probably sell a recording of that to the CIA as a torture device for interrogation methods. (shiver)
“The Internet is so big, so powerful and pointless, that for some people it is a complete substitute for life.” I totally agree with Andrew Brown on this subject. Cyber communication is hailed as the best thing since sliced bread when in all reality; it could very well be the downfall of any country in the world. There are many growing problems in the world, and cyber communication is definitely one of them.
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