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Second Place Winner
Daniel Long
8th Grade, All Souls School
In February, 2008, Miss Miles, My English teacher, assigned my class and me this assignment. She told us we were to partake in an essay contest sponsored by Priime Tiime Today. Priime Tiime Today works to create media awareness in our society, and our essays were to reflect on how we can be independent thinkers in an Internet dependent world. Ironically, the first place Miss Miles sent us to get brainstorming ideas was Priime Tiime Today’s website at http://www.primett.org. The site contained innumerable topics to which we could write our papers, and all the facts we needed to write our paper. As writers, we did not have to think at all. The website essentially wrote our essays for us. While writing this essay was meant to help me discover how to become an independent thinker, I discovered the very embodiment of internet dependency. Ironically, my first encounter with this internet dependency was through the website sponsored by Priime Tiime Today, which promotes independent thinking. As I reflected upon the information I had gathered from http://www.primett.org, I was surprised at my own internet dependency, and how hard it is for me to come up with my own ideas.
The first way I can be an independent thinker in our internet dependent society is by generating my own original ideas and being able to support them with pertinent information. The internet should be used to spread knowledge and information. However, in most cases, it is not used as it should be. When it comes to the academic side of the internet, it is used as a shortcut and an “easy way out” instead of being used to support our ideas by backing them up with facts. A prime example of the laziness that the internet fosters in students is the increase in plagiarism. Plagiarism is an extreme offense; however plagiarism is becoming more and more common. According to officials from the University of California-Berkley, between the years 1993 and 1997, cheating has increased 744 percent. This cheating is probably due to the internet. After all, those were the years when internet use was climbing at a stupendous rate. In fact, according to a study done by Rutgers University, cheating has become so widespread that 6% of students interviewed from 31 different celebrated universities claim to have cheated at least once. With the means to plagiarize at the fingertips of today’s students, and my generation considered the dumbest of all generations so far because of our laziness, who knows how the children of today will choose to act? Even through the internet sources such as http://www.primett.org students find an easy way to write their paper that is not frowned upon. What will students choose to do? With 66% of students cheating, there will not be many who will choose not to take the easy way out and think independently. There is no doubt that the internet can be used in a negative way, so what can we do to make it so the internet can’t be used negatively? Nothing. No one can change the way the internet works and the information already written on the internet, so in an academic environment, we must choose not to be lazy and to force ourselves to think independently, using the internet strictly for information and not to let the computer do all the thinking for us.
I can also be an independent thinker in an internet dependent world by forming my own opinions on issues frequently debated by society such as abortion and what should be done about the war in Iraq. Too often the media, either though the internet or other popular media forms, influences people to support a specific side in the debate. Nine times out of ten, the media reflects the views of the majority in society. The media is meant to show diversity and spread knowledge. How does siding on one issue and conveying information that supports one side over the other help us to become more informed on important issues? I can be an independent thinker by choosing not to be influenced by the media and forming my own individual opinions on important issues.
Thirdly, I can be an independent thinker in an internet dependent world by sticking to my morals at al times. The media often depicts what is deemed good or pleasing to society, even when such depictions are immoral. Society’s morals are currently on a downward spiral. In fact, it is surprising how far we have fallen. Two hundred years ago women were not even allowed to show their ankles in public. Now today, pornography is one of the biggest industries on the internet. How did we fall so far? Not only has society given in to temptation and deemed that what is pleasurable cannot be bad, but society is naturally rebellious. During adolescence each generation feels a need to rebel in some way from the previous generation. Somewhere between two hundred years ago and now a generation rebelled and decided to show their ankles. The showing of your ankles became acceptable in society as that generation grew older and reigned over the earth. The same happened with porn. At some time, a generation chose to rebel and invented pornography. Now, slowly, pornography is becoming more and more accepted into society. We have arrived at a point in immorality that we should be ashamed, however, we are not.
According to the Internet Filter Review, in 2006 pornographic sites accounted for 12% of all the internet’s sites. Sadly, the majority of people who view porn on the internet are kids between the ages of twelve and seventeen. We have fallen as a society, and we are slowly plummeting downward in our moral values. What will or morals be like in one hundred years? It is scary to think about. I do not want to know what it will be like, so I choose to take a stand and stick to my morals in any form of peer pressure, whether it’s from my friends or the media. Not only will I become a more independent thinker and an independent person but I will also become one link in the chain of society that is still shining and not smudged with oil. Eventually through my shine I will convince the other links to wipe the oil off of themselves, and slowly we will become a more moral society.
There is no way I can change any part of the internet, however, I can choose to think independently in all parts of my life, academic and my personal life. Becoming dependant on the internet to do my thinking for me is corrupting my own mind and stopping me from thinking originally with imagination and intellect so, for that reason, I vow to become a more independent thinker.