{"id":3215,"date":"2016-05-24T04:22:29","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T22:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3215"},"modified":"2016-05-24T04:22:29","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T22:52:29","slug":"internet-day-technology-smartphone-love-parenting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3215","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday, Internet. You\u2019re the Best Nanny I Could Ask For"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A<\/span><\/p>t our age, as we await impending quarter-life crises and wrestle with nasty imposter syndromes, if we must celebrate a birthday, it should be this: 27 years ago, engineer, computer scientist, and <\/span>internet\u2019s<\/span><\/a> Daddy Tim Berners-Lee opened up the World Wide Web for everyone who had access to a computer. He didn\u2019t know it at the time, but he ended up forever changing the world.<\/span>\n\nIn fact, we were the first generation to have grown up with the little dude called the internet.<\/span>\n\nAs our phones changed from <\/span>landlines<\/span><\/a> to mobiles and our hormones from dormant to hyperactive, the internet sped up with us 1 kbps at a time. So the next time someone asks you where you\u2019re from, slap your chest and proudly say that you were born, and raised on the borderless, limitless empire of the internet. Because this vast land of 1s and 0s has shaped our generation into the people that we are. <\/span>\n\nIsn\u2019t it mindblowing how this virtual entity has literally shrunk the world? <\/span>\n\nI\u2019ve had the internet by my side since I was 10 years old. Even after spending a glorious 16 years with it, it still constantly amazes me: On one hand, people across the world have gathered for <\/span>protests <\/span><\/a>because of one post and on the other they\u2019ve also come together to inexplicably yell \u201cBol Na Aunty Aaun Kya\u201d.<\/span>\n\nBefore the internet, I used to think of myself as an <\/span>introvert<\/span><\/a>. At that time, I was the only teenager I knew who watched anime and emotionally ate her way through life. The magazines I would buy always had perfect regular girls on them \u2013 who were rich daughters to famous parents and had their rooms featured in said magazines. I, on the other hand, slept on the divan in the living room: an obese person who only enjoyed reading books and watching the Disney channel. And I couldn\u2019t help but feel slightly disconnected from the real world where everyone seemed to have it better.<\/span>\n

I\u2019m happy not being a part of the \u201caur bataiye\u201d generation. If that means I look for connection and advice on the internet and in my smartphone, so be it.<\/blockquote>\nIt was on the internet that I realised that the world is mostly <\/span>middle-class<\/span><\/a>, that the people in the magazines aren\u2019t really real, and that I wasn\u2019t alone. That too many people sleep in the living room, go on food-binges like me, and are hardcore anime fans. I\u2019ve related to more people who\u2019ve had to spend two months away at Nani\u2019s house than those who went for <\/span>family<\/span><\/a> summer vacation to Europe. And I wouldn\u2019t have known them had it not been for the interwebz.<\/span>\n\nOne of the most common arguments I hear thrown around by my <\/span>parents\u2019 <\/span><\/a>generation, is that the internet has turned us millennials into bums. The \u201chamare zamaane mein toh\u201d line of attack on us digital natives. We\u2019re told that our smartphone lifestyle has made us completely self-involved, given us an inflated sense of self, and made us believe that each of us is unique, a snowflake. <\/span>\n\nI\u2019d say it\u2019s the exact opposite. Instead of making me think that I\u2019m unique or isolated and that my troubles are mine alone, the internet has provided me a sense of community. I have deeper, more soulful chats with my besties at 2 am than what passes off as a conversation between older folks in the neighbourhood. <\/span>\n\n\u201cGhar pe sab theek?\u201d <\/span>\n\n\u201cHaan ji sab theek! Aur aapke ghar pe?\u201d <\/span>\n\n\u201cSab theek. Aur bataiye?\u201d<\/span>\n\nI\u2019m happy not being a part of the \u201caur bataiye\u201d generation. If that means I look for connection and advice on the internet and in my <\/span>smartphone<\/span><\/a>, so be it. I\u2019d rather be forming relationships with strangers I have never met versus people I continue to meet and who <\/span>still<\/span><\/i> remain strangers. \u00a0<\/span>\n\nMy first boyfriend Matt, was English. He was 18 and I was 13. Over the period of our courtship, we chatted twice on MSN messenger and sent two emails to each other. He\u2019d sent me a photo of a gorilla and I replied with a portrait of Hilary Duff. I was convinced it was true <\/span>love<\/span><\/a>. And I didn\u2019t know what he looked like. But that\u2019s ok. I got more out of that relationship than I do out of my extended family. <\/span>\n\nA report in <\/span>Business Insider<\/span><\/a> labelled the internet \u201cthe best set of parents a millennial could ask for\u201d. \u201cThe one thing millennials <\/span>have<\/span><\/i> mastered is the internet\u2026 In a weird way, asking thousands of anonymous strangers for help is more of an adult thing to do than asking your parents, because asking your parents feels like a regression in maturity… Here the internet serves as a handy way to learn a life skill without admitting to the universe that you still feel like a child.\u201d <\/span>\n\nSo yes, the internet has been there for me when many others haven\u2019t: Whether I\u2019ve wanted to ask questions about the Treaty of Versailles or the Illuminati or how to tell my crush that I liked him. The internet has proved to be a much better educator of moral science, <\/span>sex <\/span><\/a>education (that the Indian education system misses by a wide margin) and even home science lessons (I learned how to cook because of the internet). <\/span>\n\nNow, my job is on the internet. It has just delivered my words to your eyes. I feel like we\u2019re friends and we haven\u2019t even met yet.<\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s some kind of magic, the internet. \u00a0<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As our phones changed from landlines to mobiles, the internet sped up with us 1 kbps at a time. So the next time someone asks you where you\u2019re from, slap your chest and proudly say that you were raised on the borderless, limitless empire of the internet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":3216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[1203,6256,1245,4805,119,4168],"class_list":["post-3215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cyber","tag-internet","tag-internet-day","tag-millennials","tag-parent","tag-technology","tag-youth"],"yoast_head":"\nHappy Birthday, Internet. You\u2019re the Best Nanny I Could Ask For<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As our phones changed from landlines to mobiles, the internet sped up with us 1 kbps at a time. 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