A plague has been laid upon our shoulders in the twenty-first century and you might be familiar with it. Major problems have developed in the last 50 years and for some reason, we just can't seem to deal with them. One of the smaller problems seems to be easy to fix, but is not, however, because something is wrong with this generation.
The problem is simple. Thousands of teenagers and even children are wasting countless hours on the internet. This isn't too big of an issue, at least it wouldn't be if they were doing something useful, but instead, they're on social networking sites. You know; MySpace, Facebook, etc. Even this isn't too big of an issue. The biggest issue I have with it is the fact that if you ask them why they're on for hours on end, they respond with the typical "I don't know" or they fail to respond at all.
Technology has had positive impacts on our society in the twenty-first century, but it has also had extremely negative ones. The trend of younger people wasting their time on the internet with pointless activities will only increase exponentially in future generations. Within just a few generations, what's to stop everyone from doing nothing but this activity? Society won't collapse or anything, but pure laziness is being incorporated into human norms more than ever.
One-hundred years ago, you would see many people doing hard work most of the day and taking a small break for leisure for a short period of time. Now, it seems that many people are focused on leisure and take a break from it to do meager work. It's not that the entire population is doing this, but enough are engaging in this trend that it is becoming plain stupid.
Maybe that child that could've cured AIDS ended up talking to people on the computer that were as close as the next room instead. Wouldn't we all enjoy that?
This trend has to come to an abrupt end. It may continue on, but it's a terrible trend in the history of the industrialized world. War literally kills people and the internet may just cause as much damage to society. Only time will tell, but it should be fun to watch our youth wither to nothingness.
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
I spent countless hours on the internet while I sit at work and do nothing.
Most of the time is spent ProUing.
Is that "wasted time" on the internet?
I don't think so.
----
What's the worst that could happen, apart from all of us being flattened or fried or whatever bombs do? [Rudy Steiner from The Book Thief]