I would like to start this Litterbox on an irritated note. I recently received a letter from my pen pal, who I rarely get mail from. Long story short, the post office ripped the letter in half, then proceeded to lose a half. They sent the remainders of my beloved letter to me in a bag telling me they were “sorry for the inconvenience” and that they were “sure my mail is very important to me”. No kidding.

This horrific experience has taught me to never trust the post office. I’ve been depending on them far too much. How often do I send letters of grave importance—with no back up letters, mind you—to relatives without a second thought? When I think about it, I send my relatives more e-mails than anything.

So how much do I depend on e-mail or the internet to do my communicating? How many times do I get on the internet every day and for how many hours? Would I be able to entertain myself without the internet for, say, a day? a month? a year? How many of us are irreversibly connected to the internet? This answer is probably most of us, including myself.

I’ve developed an addiction to the internet, and I don’t believe this statement is a hyperbole. When Wikipedia says that a computer addiction is defined as “the excessive use of computers to the extent that it interferes with daily life such as social interaction, mood, personality, work ethic, relationships, thought processes, or sleep deprivation”, I don’t doubt that I have an addiction. I also don’t doubt that many students at this school have the very same addiction.

What, then, is the problem? When thinking that I have an internet addiction, my first reaction is a shrug. Who cares if I spend more than six hours on the computer every day? So what if I’m losing a few hours of sleep and have stopped spending time with my parents? It’s not like anyone else is doing any different. But that’s the problem, isn’t it?

The problem is dependence on the internet. See, the internet is an unstable force; it can be changed or taken away easily; it is not dependable. So many teenagers are hanging their homework, their entertainment and their social lives on the internet; they’re putting too much dependence on the internet. I am very, very guilty of this. If the internet were to be destroyed tomorrow, with no trace of anything I’ve ever worked on with a computer left in the world, I might actually have a conniption. Is this healthy? Of course not.

Neither I nor anyone else should lean their lives on the internet. There are things that one can learn, people that one can get to know, things that one can do that are permanent. Memories of people and events and knowledge can’t be erased with a black out. I implore you, reader; spend time enhancing your own personal history with rich feelings and colors rather than enhancing your computer’s search history. Have some self-dependence, share it with others, and work on your ability to have a good time with life when all you’ve got is yourself.