It’s what you do with what you have that matters.
Yes, we’re living in the Internet Age, and we cannot emphasize enough just how important this technology means for us. Basically, it is part of almost everyone’s daily lives, and it involves almost every aspect of life. On his essay, “Shaping the Internet Age”, Bill Gates stressed that the Internet is very powerful, and it can work to our advantage or at our loss. It can enlarge our comfort zone and give us more options and opportunities, or it can increase the complexities and the confusion for us.
Gates mentioned in his essay that any new technology, including the Internet, is made and being improved to increase the potential of human beings. It is meant to bring out the best in us. Functioning as a tool, the Internet is supposed to help us find significant opportunities toward productiveness and fulfillment.
The Internet enables us to accomplish more. It gives us no borders. It allows us to do things people decades ago could never have done. And what’s amazing, the Internet is still in its younger years, as written in Gates’s essay. It is still in its molding stage. There is more to know about it, more of it that will get our attention and keep it for some time. Gates, in his 2000 essay, highlighted enough the power of the Internet. But we also need to consider that we are the ones who shape the Internet Age, not the Internet shaping our lives.
The Internet is made and being improved for the benefit of the human race. We aim to get the Internet to its full potential, because by doing so, we enhance our potential. But the Internet is not meant to replace us or our significant others’ roles in our lives. It is made to enhance our lives, and not to become our lives.
The Internet, New Social Media. They are beneficial to us and we ought to use it at its optimum potential for our good, but once the focus shifts from the people to the technology itself, the efforts become meaningless. When vested on things or achievements rather than on people, the money used is considered spent, not invested. The time poured out is wasted, not maximized.
It’s not what you have that counts. It’s what you do with what you have that matters.