This week I read a blog by David Warlick titled, "Is StarBucks Killing Community?" It talks about a book he found called Everything but the Coffee: Learning About America fromStarbucks. David brings up an interesting point about how we can't learn anything from Starbucks because no one talks. Think about it the next time you walk into a Starbucks, there is very little noise. Sure there are some groups of people quietly chattering, but the majority of the people are there sipping their coffee while surfing the, you know exactly what I'm going to say next...internet. Of course they are. In all the StarBucks there is WiFi and people using it. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a great example of our world today.
Every where we look there is technology. Not even jus that, but iternet too. People carry the internet with them in their pockets! It's insane how much the world has changed. The way we learn, the way we live, the way we communicate, it's all new. people hardly ever talk anymore. It's all text. Emailing, texting, blogging, FaceBooking (I don't know if this is a word, but it should be), and all the other stuff out there that doesn't require any personal voice or connection. Our community and interaction really is being killed, maybe not by StarBucks, but by a lot of stuff found in StarBucks and everywhere else.
We are so dependent on the internet for everything we do. If for one day the entire internet crashed, I seriously think the world would come to an end. One night my internet was down, so I had to go to my neighbor's house to do all my homework because about 90% of it required the internet. The internet is basically running our Nation, if not the entire world. It's crazy how it's just become an everyday normality when less then 20 years ago, it was something so futuristic and alienatic. So, the next time you walk into StarBucks, count how many people are on their laptops or cell phones with internet ability, and think about just how much it has transformed all that we know and live for.
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I agree with what you have to say completely. A question I have is that, how do we know that all those people are doing in Starbucks are just surfing the web, not interacting with the world through a blog?
ReplyDeleteYou picked a very good topic. I thought that you had a lot to say about it. I really like your statement about how 90% of homework is on the Internet because it is really true.
On the other hand, there was errors in spelling and grammar. You might want to take into the effect of coping it into a word document, and then hitting spell check. (I know its incredible) Then re-read it again for other errors.
I am just as guilty of not doing this as you.