Essay on Internet. Let's Go Offline

Some critics, such as Clay Shirky, believe that the internet has been the best invention since bread and butter. Although the internet has made life easier in ways such as communicating, posting, and writing, our generation needs a break. In Chuck Klosterman’s “My Zombie, Myself:Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead”, he says “Zombies are like the Internet and the media and every conversation we don’t want to have” (425). We are constantly surrounded by the internet and we don’t necessarily want it to follow us in our school work. I suggest that school should go back to the old school way of teaching, without internet.

My generation doesn’t remember a day without technology. My mom would give me her phone to keep me quiet while she took care of my brother in the other room. Three years later I got my own flip phone and thought I was the coolest kid on the block. Not much later I found myself staying up till four in the morning playing Wizard101 or My Dream Wedding. In middle school the social media platform Ask FM was widely popular and I would check it constantly. In high school Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram was always pulled up on our phones. Technology is the first thing we see when we wake up and the last when we go to bed, so why would we want in school too?

Colleges expect our generation to want technology, so they encourage professors to keep all homework online. However this isn’t always the case. The first problem of online assignments is that students lose the connection with the teacher. In Bo Moore’s article “Why Video Games Should Be Played with Friends, Not Online with Strangers” he talks about how online gaming ruined the social aspect and “Suddenly we were playing together alone”(437). This same idea is happening in classrooms. Before the use of Canvas and Blackboard, homework was due the next day and you only get one try. The teacher often would go over the homework so you could better understand. Now with online homework, you get about a week to complete and multiple tries. Whenever you walk into the classroom you get a lecture and then leave. This can lead to misunderstanding or no understanding at all.

The second point is that it cost way to much money. College kids already have to pay thousands upon thousands and adding an access code is just unnecessary, especially when the questions come directly from the book. It is cheaper on the students to rent a textbook and be assigned questions by the teacher. By doing this we are saving money that can go to our tuition or personal account for emergencies. With having a mom as a teacher, I know grading papers can be exhausting and can take all night, but it is so much cheaper than...