How To: Not Completely Ruin Your Life (#Wattys2015)

My Friend The Internet.

Have you ever heard a parent, grandparent or adult in general tell you about life before the internet? About how people used to go to librarys and study, go knock on a neighbours door if they wanted to see them and by far my favourite about how the current generation wouldn't be able to live without the internet. Now I was born in 1998, what's that place called where only old people go? Oh yeah, outside, news flash I've been. When I was growing up I would've been perfectly happy living outside, I was such a tomboy always up for fun, adventure and mischief. Me and my two older sisters would always camp in the garden (with sufficient snacks of course) I was the captain of my football team and spent 70% of my free time down at the park. I definitely love the internet... But at times kinda hate it.

On the one side it's essentially having the world in your hands: questions, solutions, opinions, communities, love, friendship. Isn't it crazy how you can buy something online and it appears in a few days and in some cases a few hours!? That's Insane! Or the MTV show Catfish where you find out two people have been talking for the last 10 years and are planning on getting married but haven't even met! SPOILER ALERT they're always either the opposite gender or overweight. However, with the sun is the rain, there is an extremely high dependency on the internet to refresh timelines, like, share, favourite and retweet posts, to have a huge number of friends or followers, there's a lot. Its exhausting.

We've become so intolerant to slow connection that waiting more than 4 seconds for Google to answer us results in mashing the refresh button so any progress that has been made has to be completed again, what smart individuals we are. Well done. Another thing that really annoys me is whenever I'm talking to a friend or sibling whilst they're texting or online and there is zero acknowledgement of me, sure they'll agree with what I say or mumble a safe response but they don't have a clue what I just said. I believe that socialising in person may have been affected by the attachment to our small bundles of tech.

With the rise of the digital era it's made it possible to have success using only the internet, using a completely obvious choice would be Justin Bieber's career - his breakthrough was on YouTube! Talking of youtube, (nice segway) have you seen the success of YouTubers? Writing books, making and starring in movies, getting their own TV shows or games all built from making videos online of virtually (pun alert) anything.

The internet has changed the way I consume media. What used to be a trip to the cinema or blockbuster is now a matter of turning on Netflix. What used to be a private disagreement is now drake Vs meek mill twitter beef and what used to be your cat doing stupid shit in the comfort of its home is now a viral video, things have changed guys.

Being that you're reading this online I'm going to make a safe assumption that you and the internet are at very least good acquaintanceses. And if you're not then... *insert Kermit meme here*