What is the internet? And I comment on my first interactions with social media

(From my original Blogspot)

What is this thing "the internet" in my life? I am full of questions, and few answers. I find that I spend quite a bit of time on the computer. We have four computers in the house (five if you count my husband's laptop), and between me and my children, I don't even know how many hours are logged on any given day!! A lot! I use the internet to substitute phone calls in making appointments or exchanging information in my real every day neighborhood. I use it to pay bills and do banking. I use it to organize photos and record thoughts. I use it to research world issues and read the paper. I use it to troubleshoot health issues and look up recipes. I read all of my school text books on the computer, post assignments, and communicate with my learning group. More recently I have joined an online community that connects friends. Here, I represent myself to my larger group of friends all over the country. I post basic information about myself and exchange simple dialogue with people who have come through my life at various times. Now, I am blogging. What is blogging? I still don't know.

Is all of this good? I hope so. In many ways, work that might have taken different forms in the past can now be done on the computer. And, not all computer time is of equal value. Paying bills and researching a topic is hardly wasting time, whereas getting lost chatting or playing games probably is wasting time. Cautions abound about the dangers of becoming addicted to the internet. And yet, using the internet can be so productive. One must keenly navigate this situation.

There are issues currently being introduced in this world which have never been answered to before. The internet creates something so big and undefined that I don't think anyone has a real grasp on what it really "is." I know I don't.