Is the Internet bad for you?

            Is the Internet bad for you?

             The Internet is very useful. We use it for research, banking, shopping, and social networking. I also use it to gather and store information, but mostly to stay in touch with people all around the world. Social Media is the number one activity on the web. And since I can access the Internet very easily from my mobile devices, I rely on it for almost everything. I can’t remember the last time my smart phone wasn’t next to me. The Internet is established as a very important medium in our lives. I am a big user of computers and I am a huge fan of technology. And luckily, technology is no longer for a small minority. Various social networks appeal to different parts of the population. Almost every member of my family has a Facebook account, from the youngest of them to the oldest. It is a great way for all of us to stay in touch, especially that we live on different continents. I choose to keep my profile private even though I sense that privacy is lost in social networking. I tend to refuse requests from strangers and I don’t request friends I do not know. Nevertheless, I enjoy participating in family affairs, even if it is virtually.

            Lately, I began to realize that I am having a lot of trouble concentrating. I noticed it particularly when I’d sit down to study. Throughout my life, reading a book came naturally to me, but now I notice that after a couple of paragraphs or pages, I begin to have this overwhelming urge to get up and check the net. I start checking my email and clicking on links to all kinds of things. There is a correspondence between my increasing use of the web and the use of digital media. Over the last few years, the Internet expanded with the introduction of all these powerful networking applications. I have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and so on (Follow me). And there are hundreds of million other active users on a global basis. My inability to focus on one thing for more than a few minutes concerns me the most. Apparently, there is too much of an attachment to surf the web and it has become addictive. Our intellectual technologies influence the way that we think. For example, years ago, we needed a map to travel, and now we a have a Global Positioning System that provides “location and time information in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near the Earth.” 

Nowadays, looking for a map is an endless process; bookstores have scaled back in their selection in recent years. Some stores have stopped selling maps altogether. They claim that maps are pointless today. I consider printed maps a fun experience when travelling because it requires the travelers to work together and become a team. It tests our ability to get along and solve problems while the GPS removes that entire interpersonal dynamic. Driving by map engages us actively in our surroundings while the GPS encourages a passive form of journeying.  Up until the map was invented, the only way to perceive location was through direct sensory, and that’s how people got around. Suddenly, we replaced our direct sensory apprehension of the world with an abstract representation of the world. On one hand, it allowed us to do a whole lot more of practical things like going to places we’ve never gone to before with certainty. On the other hand, more broadly, it gave us a more abstract way of thinking in general, and there are some deep cognitive and intellectual consequences. We are hooked up to every form of communication, but we’re not actually engaging and interacting with people. We have the social skills of a microwave dinner and the more time we are spending online the more we are getting incompetent at the area of sociability and social dynamics. How we receive and deal with people is a skill that we are losing. Real world social interactions diminished drastically.

            Because the majority of our time is spent online, it definitely has some effect on the way we think and act. We have become too dependent on it that we can’t go a day without disconnecting from reality to check the Internet. We live in incredibly information-rich environment and we want to know everything that is going on around us; therefore, it is promoting a compulsive behavior in which we constantly check our smart phones. Moreover, we’re living in this perpetual state of distraction and interruptions that is blocking our abilities to learn properly. Thus, we are not building knowledge. Nicholas Carr wrote that the Internet is making us “superficial thinkers,” in his book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Our humanity is at stake because we lack the ability to pay attention and control our mind.

            There is no doubt that the Internet offers a variety of benefits to anyone who is willing to effectively use it. There is more to it than social networking and watching silly videos. It undoubtedly offers a powerful educational source through the enormous amount of information available. It has been my electronic library.  However, the fact remains that too much of anything is never good for you and the best thing we can do for our mind is to find time everyday to unplug, calm down and focus on one thing at a time, especially that all the information will still be there when we get back. The solution is to have more purpose in our communication. We have to set ourselves the challenge of not having the Internet in the palms of our hands all-day and everyday.

From Hate to Hope: Museum of Tolerance

"In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit." 

- Anne Frank

Upon my arrival to the Museum of Tolerance, I find out that I needed to make reservations to get inside, so I wandered around the city for two hours until I finally entered an experience worth sharing. I learned about the history of the center and their dedicated vision to educate and challenge visitors to understand the Holocaust in a contemporary context and to confront all forms of prejudice and discrimination in our world today.

It all started with Simon Wiesenthal, a Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor who was forced to work as a slave laborer in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, and then dedicated his life to track down fugitive Nazi war criminals so that they could be brought to trial. With a reputation as a storyteller, he became a writer and the author of several memoirs containing tales of the actual event.

With a mission statement dedicated to repair the world one step at a time, the Simon Wiesenthal Center was established in 1977, and the Center’s educational arm became The Museum of Tolerance, which was founded in 1993. The program generates changes by confronting anti-Semitism, hate and terrorism, and it promotes human rights and dignity. It fosters tolerance and understanding through community involvement, educational outreach and social action.

The building is a unique multimedia museum examining racism and prejudice around the world. The museum seems to attract people with troubling pasts. As I enter the center, the sites and the sounds of the city slowly diminish, and the unveiling of the museum quickly grabs my attention. Everybody coming to the museum gets an audio guide experience that enables visitors to seamlessly connect with exhibits throughout the journey in a personal way. I was able to get context about artifacts and themes on interactive screens throughout the exhibit space.

I knew that the Holocaust was a horrific event in Jewish history, one of the largest genocide in which approximately 6 millions Jews were killed by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime, but I also learned that there was an additional 5 million non-Jewish victims of Nazi mass murders, bringing the total to approximately 11 million killings, of which, 2 million were children. These people were thrown out of their houses to live like animals, 10 to 15 person per room, they worked hard slave labor seven days a week and obeyed the Nazis for survival, not knowing if their family members were alive or not, but knowing that they could die next:  People were dying every minute from disease and starvation.

Tibor Rubin is a Holocaust survivor who was awarded a Metal of Honor. He spent 14 months in a concentration camp where his parents, sister and brothers were killed. After the war, he moved to the U.S and joined the US army and he was able to save the lives of over 40 people during the Korean War using his survival skills that he learned during the Holocaust. He remembers his horrible childhood, but his story is courageous.

This center is a leading international Jewish NGO named in memory of the great Nazi hunters. Simon devoted his life to encourage people to learn the lessons from the horrors of World War II and the genocide against the Jewish people so it wouldn’t happen again. Everything that I saw at the museum of tolerance is really built to encourage us to learn from history and also to do some critical thinking and to take personal responsibility for our own actions. The good part about this museum is about contemporary issues, international terrorism, the plight of children around the world, as well as hate crimes right here in the United States. 

The museum is a tribute to The Holocaust Survivors and it is very important that we honor the lives of the families that didn’t survive the concentration camps and that we show respect to the ones that were able to escape. We must remember the past even though sometimes we don’t want to, but to make a difference in the world, we have to learn from previous mistakes.