Food, Water, and The Internet

Our world is getting more and more advanced every year and technology is becoming more essential to our daily lives. The internet is important to our lives as clothes, food and shelter because we thrive on the information that we obtain. The World Wide Web has allowed people from around the world to obtain information that people without internet cannot. According to “Young Adults and Virtual Public Spheres: Building A New Political Culture” by Alan E. Rycroft, “young adults favor the Internet for news and information gathering.” I myself, use the internet 90% of the time whenever I need to gather information. Alan also says that the internet provides a more diverse culture and a more efficient way of gathering information from many points of view all over the world whether it’s politics or news.

Being accessible anywhere around the world, the internet provides the tools to allow people to express their thoughts and ideas. For example, there are many websites that allow people to communicate through the web which allows diverse opinions from people around the world about anything from video games to politics. Alan E. Rycroft states that “The fact that young people are now exposed to a wide variety of opinions, well beyond the narrow confines of corporate media reporting, and that many take the opportunity to learn more about issues that interest them, helps compel many young people to take action and use the Internet as a political communications and organizing tool.” I think it is in the human nature to take interests in things that we as an individual are intrigued by.

Using the internet for politics and news is one thing but using video games to portray what is happening around the world such as wars and economic crisis is a whole other idea. In “The Civic Potential of Video Games” written by Joseph Kahne, Ellen Middaugh, and Chris Evans, the question “Are teens that have civic gaming experiences more committed to and engaged in civic and political activity?” I think it does because gamers who enjoy games like “Call of Duty” and “Star Craft” become more interested in things that relate to the game. When I played the “Call of Duty” series, I was more amused at the storyline in the single player mode than I have ever been in any history or civics class I have ever taken. The story of the video game allowed me to play as a soldier of WWII and it was definitely more interesting than reading books about WWII. Playing the game kept me engaged and all the while helped me learn in a fun and interesting way about how WWII was like. Not many young adults like to deal with politics, especially if they would have to pull the books out, I think that there is no better way than to engage young students and adults about civics than video games that help engage in civics.