This Strange, Invisible Stratosphere

The internet is a crazy thing. You can spend hours and hours, all day, every day scouring it and still not scratch the surface of all the information it holds. True some of that information is false, as anyone with internet access can post something, but it is information nonetheless.

However, the internet has a bad stigma attached to it. Especially for teenagers. You think that because I am a teenager and I am spending time on the internet, I am wasting my time. I'm doing things that don't matter. I killing my brain cells. Or something. And it sucks.

I will admit, i do "waste time" on the internet every day. But really, is it wasted? "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time". I do think that it is ok to spend time doing something that makes you happy every day, on the internet or off, whether it is important and helpful to the "bettering of your mind" (or some crap like that) or not. That is not the pint of this post, however.

I spend time on the internet learning. Not necessarily in the dweeby "I only play math games and read 100 page professional articles and learn useless facts" sort of way. (If you do that, Go You! If that's what you love, keep it up and have fun. It's just not my cup of tea). No, I spend time learning about culture. I spend time watching funny yet (somewhat) education videos on youtube (think vlogbrothers, mental floss, how to adult, crashcourse, thebrainscoop, etc.) that teach me a variety of things from current events to chemistry and psychology, to discussions of classical books, to how to be an adult. I watch spoken word poetry and learn how about other people's lives and experiences. I learn empathy for other cultures. I follow humansofnewyork on tumblr and learn about the dreams of people of all ages across the country from me. I watch TED talks about depression and psychology and art and now ideas and theories. I talk to friends. I create. I think. I look up how to draw foxes and human hands and Elsa and Anna. I follow blogs that give me tips on writing creatively, for my audience, or how make a character relatable in a specific situation.

And I know, that you may not think that these things, or all of these things, are important, but they are. At least to me they are. And while I could possibly spend some of that time doing other things, it is not all wasted time, and what I am doing is not all bad.



Ok, rant over. :P