Quite Thought Full

The Internet is an amazing tool without limits. It can teach us nearly everything, connect us with everyone and entertain us with, well, absolutely anything the world comes up with. It is the entertaining contribution of the Internet that is making some worry that we, as a society, are spending an unreasonable amount of time on the Internet. Not because of the entertainers contributing, but because of what is entertaining Internet browsers.

Some would argue that what we spend time with on the Internet is nothing but a waste of time.

A blog posted by president of Participant Television Evan Shapiro on Oct. 2 recently took a stand on the type of entertainment most commonly found on the Internet and, more importantly, most popular form of entertainment on the Internet; YouTube videos. Calculating the numbers, Shapiro discussed how one Korean music video has taken the World Wide Web by storm and has been viewed more than 480 million times.

For the video that is just over four minutes long, that is over 3,600 years of viewing time since July 15 when the video was shared with the world.

A video that is not even in English with the exception of two words. A video that is some parts vulgar, some parts funny, some parts whimsical and some parts just plain dumb. A video that has now inspired parodies all across the world that have their own share of millions of views. A video and its song that reached the top of U.K.’s top 40 playlist at the end of last month and is now climbing the charts in the U.S.. A video that can be heard on the radio more times than is desirable.

Jesus Christ has been dead for a shorter amount of time than this video has been watched. Check the date; he’s been dead more than 2,000 years.

This is what the world wastes its time with on the Internet.

Wasting time on the Internet is no joke. Research reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2010 found that in lower income homes especially, children of parents without college degrees spend 11.5 hours each day exposed to media from the Internet, TV and other sources. Of course it’s assumed that parents without college degrees have less education about the Internet and how much exposure their children can have to it. But even with children with college-educated parents, they are still spending up to 10 hours a day hooked into multimedia. And this is just children.

Adults are addicted to the internet, as well. It is an addiction that is wasteful and unproductive in the worst form. In December 2011, the Pew Internet and American Life Project reported that “On any given day, 53 percent of all the young adults ages 18 to 29 go online for no particular reason except to have fun or to pass the time.”

So more than half of the time we go on the Internet, our age group can be found looking at humorous memes; stalking celebrities or friends or crushes through Facebook or Twitter; or watching music videos where we don’t even know what is being said.

Why doesn't everyone step away from your gadgets and waste some time with a good book?

Katie Walsh is a senior English and philosophy major and can be reached at walshk2@duq.edu.