With the release of Pokemon Go, the world has seen a surge of game-related discussion, boastful status-sharing, and of course, the inside-joke pictures known as memes. However, as with any other internet sensation, this community is not without its opposers. In fact, due to its cartoonish subject matter and a large number of adult players such as myself (assuming you use the word “adult" loosely), an even more aggressive community of naysayers seems to have come to life.
But if you care about that conflict (or even if you don’t), you’ve probably already seen a number of articles on social media. “Savage Rant on Pokemon Go”, “How Pokemon Go is Changing the World”, “People are going Nuts over Pokemon Go.” Yada yada yada, you get the idea. These articles take up half of my Facebook feed (partly on purpose, admittedly), but that’s not what I’m here to talk about. The point is that this type of conflict is not all that new. Take a mental step back and think of pretty much any aspect of the internet. It has certainly had some degree of criticism from those who are not part of it.
Supposedly, Facebook is filled with drama, Youtube appeals to the lazy and unproductive, and comments sections are filled with cynics and bullies. Additionally, Google is making people stupider and word processing programs make people careless. Observers have come to these conclusions based on how they have seen others use sites and programs they have lived without, and as much as I hate to say it, they’re not wrong.
Yes, there are dramatic people on Facebook. Yes, much of Youtube is filled with nonsensical bits of pure chaos. And yes, there seems to be a prevalence of cruel people online with the sole purpose of making others feel inferior. The problem, though, is that many people generalize these feelings to the specific application they observed instead of the specific users.
Many high school students opt to search each word on their “Key Terms” list as opposed to doing the reading they were assigned in class, true. Many young adults prefer to ask for help on Yahoo Answers as opposed to doing basic research either on or off of the internet. Again, this is true. Still, for that one person searching “Oedipus Complex Definition” on Google only to write down the first thing he sees onto an AP Psychology worksheet, there is another searching it who will go on to passionately study five pages on the Oedipus Complex and the psych Stages before reading “Oedipus Rex” by Sophocles. Similarly, while one 14-year-old is asking Yahoo blatantly misinformed questions about what she seems to think is sex, another is pooling advice about the many resources and factors to consider when buying their first car in the next couple years. These resources serve useful to those who utilize them.
Let’s be honest. Thanks to the internet, we have all cherished some piece of useless information and assured our friends it will come in handy eventually, as if a criminal will one day hold our college Bio class hostage until someone can tell them what a group of caterpillars is called (it’s an “army”, by the way). Truthfully, though, we will probably never get the chance to share our knowledge without shoehorning it into conversations with friends (or acquaintances depending on how frequently you do this), but what’s wrong with that, really? With the internet, all the knowledge of the world is at our fingertips. Sure there’s a lot of dirt we don’t care about, but there’s gold too! We just have to know how to dig. Not all gold is of a factual nature either.
All right, bear with me for a short story.
Around the middle of August 2015, I attended a retreat with some of my future classmates at University of Wisconsin—Stevens Point. As someone who spent most of his time on the computer, I knew I would feel out of place. Nevertheless, I met someone else who not only played video games but the same videogames I did. While talking to him at one point, a camp counselor mocked me for my shyness with the other campers, yelling at me to “meet new people”. Without thinking, I simply replied, “I am,” shot her a short glare (as this hadn’t been her first comment to me), and continued my conversation. That’s when I became aware that some observers looking at this “gamer” clique saw each member as a solitary individual leading a lonely life. Perhaps this was the case at one point, but that time has long since passed.
The internet is not just a thesaurus or a dictionary or an almanac. No, it is both a book and a plaza. It is a place to greet, to laugh, to share. I mean, you’re reading this after all, and chances are you aren’t my physical neighbor (unless you are, in which case I need to talk to you about the ineffectiveness of your dog’s underground fence, Mike). Regardless I am able to communicate with you, to show you my thoughts. And it happens everywhere in the most dynamic, beautiful ways. For every teenage girl obsessed with the number of Facebook likes on her photo, there is an immigrant student who can still talk to her friends back in Saudi Arabia. In the comments section of a Youtube video, while two tween boys are busy demonstrating their wide range of racial slurs and vulgar insults to each other, two college seniors are having a morally philosophical discussion on the implications of different domestic policies.
If I had been talking to that new friend over a message board or Skype instead of in person, there wouldn’t have been a difference. He is still who he is, and the same goes for my 19-year-old friend in Canada and my 16-year-old Texan acquaintance, neither of whom I have ever met in person.
Do I think there is immorality and cruelty in this interconnected web of data? Absolutely. In fact, I see more bad than good out there, and I know firsthand how easily the abyss can stare into you once you’ve given it a glance (an experience I will explain another time). But the truth is that the internet has its bad and good like we have our bad and good… In fact, it is exactly like us, because the internet (as well as a number of other things I will write about in my lifetime) is simply our tool. We created it, and it is shaped every day by how we use it.
If you are looking to completely avoid useless information, comment trolls, and drama, then yeah, maybe this technology isn’t for you, but what we come into contact with isn’t what makes us. It is how we process and think about everything we encounter that decides who we are and how much we can be.
Understand that the power of the World Wide Web is yours to control. Use it as best as you can.
