When I began high school in 1999 the internet had little influence on my life. My day to day routine never incorporated checking email, posting a new blog, or conversing through instant messaging as it did three years later. There was considerable difference of amount of time I spent online between the beginning of high school and end. Now my uses for the internet have changed in the sense that its mainly research-based time spent but this is a broad term that encompasses all my investigating of different interest of mine, including writing. If I hear of a Vincent Price-in-the-autumn-of-his-life picture involving child murder and incestuous relations in a small Tennessee town I look it up on imdb.com or if I love a song in a film I've seen I'll download it and learn of early 80's New York no wave Tuxedo Moon.
All considering, the internet has affected my life positively in that information is more accessible and I feel like I've been made more aware of what I already inherently appreciate. I still communicate with family and friends through the phone and both parents are not internet savvy so this leaves us with little other alternative. However, I believe the internet has negatively affected interpersonal relationships in that its reduced communication to very little personally. I have myself not experienced this but the social repercussions of such are that people lose the ability to connect with another and do not gain real insight into the other's motivations and perspective. In late high school I experienced instant messaging where it became invasive and I lost sight of personal boundaries at times. Thankfully it played itself out like a phase and nothing negative came of it except feeling foolish and I have to laugh at myself.
