The Web of Success

Americans are often criticized for creating a culture of overconsumption and excessive waste. When overconsumption is brought up, it typically applies to the areas of food, consumer products and energy.

However, the overconsumption of mass media is often forgotten because instead of leaving behind physical waste, we waste our time. Because of the Internet, access to instant gratification has increased and holds people back.

The Internet has become a paradox in that so many people use it as a form of escape from their daily lives, yet so many people are also trapped by it.

Everyone has a routine, the few websites that are your sure guarantee for a good time, like that person you know you can call to help you with something you’ve decided to call homework.

You start out checking your email, and the next thing you know you’ve been Stumbling for three hours.

If work ethic was a tree in the IU Arboretum, instant gratification would be the storm that ripped that poor sap in half.

While you may have thought about how hard you are going to work on that term paper all day, once you sit down you’ve decided that starting a blog on Tumblr is just the thing your life needs.

And so, your virtual quest begins to find which template fits your personality best.

Although the distractions that exist in the Internet’s abyss are tough to handle, it also provides incredible information and connections.

If you want to learn how to play that triumphant piano riff in Europe’s “The Final Countdown,”  there is a Youtube video for that.

You could even learn something by watching a video on KhanAcademy.org, or if you need money, you can go on Shopify.com and start selling paintings of your cat.

Any of these options would be better uses of time than what we normally choose. 

Because of the Internet’s enormity, it seems like it should be impossible to waste a moment on it. But that just doesn’t sound enticing when we need to relax.

It just isn’t realistic to believe we can use the Internet to its full potential, but I’d still like to think that the Native Americans wouldn’t be as wasteful and would have used every part of the Internet.


—  agreiner@indiana.edu

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