Digital, digital get down

If I had all day to do nothing, then I would probably sit at home and post comments on YouTube videos, criticizing talented artists and getting in cyber fights with people I have never met. After my anger has been released through the pounding on my keyboard, I would take a trip to the land of ChatRoulette in the hopes of meeting some creep that can just F9 me in 1.5 seconds. Finally, to top my worthless day off, I would spend another five hours on MySpace, talking to the friends I just made on YouTube and ChatRoulette.
Truthfully, I would never like to spend any of my precious days glued to the Internet, although we all can admit we have done our time over the digital screen. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about ChatRoulette and what could possibly be next. We really couldn’t think of anything crazier than connecting two random strangers on opposite ends of the world with the click of a button. This conversation led into how we grew up watching the Internet expand.
Around sixth grade I received my first AOL account and began waiting 10 minutes for my dial up to connect me with friends of friends on Instant Messenger. At the time, AOL was just a small part of my night. It was something I did after causing a ruckus up and down the block. Most importantly, I was chatting with kids who went to schools in my same district. I feel like I should be worrying about the younger generation and their Internet habits. However, my reason for concern is not so much due to the dangers of  the creeps out there. It is the fact that everything they do on the Internet is completely normal.
Talking to friends with younger siblings, they have all made the same types of comments as to how their brothers and sisters perceive technology. The common theme is that they come home from school, get on the computer and constantly text message. At first glance this seems normal. Everyone massively texts and hops on the computer every chance they get. However, I think the difference is that we still know what it was like to not have these benefits. I think we still understand that face-to-face communication is very important.
The movie “WALL•E” came to mind when thinking of this younger generation. I just don’t want to see them cooped up in their rooms for the rest of their lives, communicating over video chats rather than hanging  out having some real interaction. I’m not sure if there is a solution to our Internet addictions but it is something to recognize as a problem in progress.