By Andrea Ordonez, Columnist
During last Thursday’s snow day, I decided to spend most of that time watching instant movies on Netflix. I also spent time re-checking my Facebook, reading all the statuses people left about being bored and hating the snow.
Around the second hour of these routine visits between Netflix and Facebook, a window popped up on my browser telling me that I was not connected onto a wireless network. The movie I was watching and the browser with my Facebook profile shut down, leading me to yell numerous expletives as I tried to get back on to Hofstra’s two new wireless networks. Finally giving up, I closed my laptop angry at the fact that I would have to go some time without immediate Internet access at my fingertips.
While this sounds like a college student’s insignificant rant about having to go a small amount of time without instant Internet access, it expresses something overlooked in the United States. We live at such a fast pace, which means that the technology we use must fit the same speed.
For Americans, the thought of functioning without quick technology like the Internet seems almost impossible. Not having Internet for a small fraction of the day had me infuriated; imagine the protests that would occur if the whole Hofstra campus had no Internet access for three days.
To counter the vast demonstrations occurring in his country, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt had Internet service shut down due to the people’s rapid use of social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, to organize protests. Cell phone and Blackberry Messaging services were disrupted as well.
Internet censorship is not a new threatening tactic taken on by government leaders. Articles by the Associated Press have noted that alongside Egypt, leaders of China, Iran, and Myanmar have in the past two years disrupted their country’s Internet for propaganda reasons or to manipulate election results.
The Internet allows us to share our feelings, thoughts, and ideas with others. Specifically, social networking through sites like Facebook and Twitter allow us to share even the most menial ideas and mercurial emotions to the whole world. While these sites in America serve mainly for personal gain, in Egypt, social networking allowed citizens to quickly organize large demonstrations which have captured worldwide attention.
Although the threat of censorship is not a heavy issue in the United States, it should become a prevalent thought for Americans who undermine the power of social networking and the Internet as a whole.
Being able to use the Internet freely is a great privilege because it allows us to both self-expression and openness to diverse opinions. It can do small things, like get us a job, or big things, like demolish a governmental regime. Having such a privilege, which has both individual and national benefits, should motivate us to help those that are being denied this same right.