How the Internet has Changed!

I was just watching a commercial on youtube, and suddenly there was a hashtag at the end of it. What?  Businesses are now using twitter?  That blew my mind a little bit.

I remember a few years ago, when I came home from my mission, I was startled to see facebook pages at the ends of all the commercials.  I've been on facebook since the very beginning of facebook.  I liked it because it was so much more private than myspace, and it was a good way to stay in touch with my college friends.  When I first got on it, only college students could use it. You had to verify that you were an actual student with you college e-mail before they would let you join. 

However, in 2010, thing had abruptly changed!  Suddenly, everyone (including Wal-mart) was on facebook.  My nifty little college social room had become a world-wide social network.  That was a little bit of a mental adjustment for me.

Then came twitter.  I still am not a part of twitter; I just don't see the point.  If someone wants to tell me why it's a good thing, I'd gladly like to know.  It just seems like a way to tell people what you are doing ALL THE TIME. 

Just now, I looked up the top 15 most popular social networking sites.  Crazy.  I'm surprised that myspace is still on the list.  I didn't even know anyone was using it anymore.

I remember when I was in fourth grade, we had computers at our school.  However, there was no internet on them.  They had some typing games and learning games, but that was it.  That was the year Accelerated Reader was introduced as well.

Then, sometime between then and sixth grade, the internet really began to pick up steam.  I remember a time when I wanted to learn something, I had to go to the library, dictionary, or encyclopedia to find it, and often there wasn't much information about it.

I love wikipedia.  That's one of my favorite parts of the internet. 

I'm not that old (at least I think), but the world has changed during my lifetime.  When I was a kid, we had a computer in our house, but that was because my grandpa owned a computer store and had kept on top of current trends.  We've always been very electronically minded.  The games were simple, but fun.  Now there are games so real that they use so much ram they cause your computer to crash.  The graphics are extraordinary and the CGI in movies is incredible!

It will be interesting to see what happens next.  I'm sure there will be bad changes, but I am also sure there will be wonderful changes coming, and those are the ones I'm excited to see.