English 100: Cyberbiography
Surprisingly, I remember the first time I logged on to the internet. It was after the many times I heard, “Ask your parents and log on to Disneychannel.com for games and more!” I was about four or five (so young, I know!) when my dad taught me how to search things in Google. I then found myself at 9 years old trying to make my own MySpace profile without my parents knowing. After my first time on the internet, I loved it, or what I knew of it. I loved the idea of talking to my friends online, of finding (alomst) any song I wanted to listen to on YouTube, and I especially loved that I could look something up and I would get more information than I even thought I could contain Over the years, I continued to explore the internet; from dress-up games to online arcades to blogging to social media networks, research, and my favorite: YOUTUBE. While the internet matured, so did I and now, as a college student, it’s my best friend; also pretty much essential in today’s society. One thing I can say about my journey with the internet is that I recognize our society’s increased dependency on it and it quite amazes me. When I was younger, i was told not to depend on it too much, which was understandable at that time and at my age. Now, though, it’s an essential tool for knowledge and success for pretty much everyone. Iʻve also noticed the amount of opportunity the technology industry has provided for those who are interested in web-related jobs. What I think is cool about this is that the internet is still fairly new; so a lot of website developers and social media founders are younger, therefore have a comtemporary outlook.
The internet has also established a whole new platform for people to represent themselves on. Nowadays, it can be fairly easy for a person to influence social media, even if they havenʻt really done anything special. For example: Danielle Bregoli: 13 year old girl who goes viral on twitter for her disrespecful persona on Dr. Phil’s talk show. This is where social media has a negative affect on its users, especially today’s youth.
My favorite thing to do online is listening to and finding music. Because of my interest in music production and composition, I want to listen to all types of categories and all types of different artists and songs. The internet makes these possibilities endless, especially with streaming sites like SoundCloud and Spotify, where you have “recommended” sections and explore pages showing you sound after sound. I also use Youtube to watch tutorials on producing with different music software-- And since the sources on these videos are endless, many artists have even been able to teach themselves how to produce and perform music. That’s another thing. Youtube tutorials online may not all be as professional as real life, but if you find the right ones, make up tutorials for example, you can become a pro just by watching them. There are skateboarding tutorials, singing tutorials, (probably) even yoga tutorials; the possibilities are really endless!
