Internet ruined me

I was first exposed to Internet in 2000. It was an era of costly browsing as the Internet revolution was in its incipient stage. People used to browse for mainly 2 reasons

1. For entertainment purposes like Desibaba,Desimama and the social networks of yahoo like chat rooms.

2. Exam results.

My friends created one yahoo id each and we used to send e-greetings to each other even though we were roommates. E-greetings were cool and it could have overtaken Archies card galleries only if the Internet charges wouldn’t have been Rs. 60/hour. One of my friend once saw me login to yahoo mail so he saw me enter my password. He later told me that he now knows my password. Upon asking he told me that it’s 5 stars, *****.

I was addicted to the Internet since then. I was more into that yahoo part of entertainment and online poker. The very idea of meeting from someone across the globe excited me. Internet cafe owners used to warn us not to reveal our identity while chatting especially to Indians. They used to advice us to use Delhi or Calcutta because Bihar has a very bad impression on others.

When I came to IIT, I was greeted by sunshine from Sun Microsystems. Just in case you are not aware of this wonderful piece of computers, they have a central system to which every computer is connected, they run UNIX (UNIX are these wonderful operating systems which have been created by men/women, of darkness who are geeks, for morons like me to gawk; they have no graphic user interfaces) and the so called CPU boxes are smaller than a keyboard. My chatting obsession took a very serious beating when I found out that I need to talk to the Computer Centre incharge to install yahoo messenger on my account, not because it was a rule but because no one knew how to install it. After a while I saw few students using it but the wonderful interface made me loath UNIX to the extreme. I had to wait for a couple of years before my dreams would become a reality.

It was during my 3rd year when we were given Internet connection in rooms. This also marks the end of my educational career and a beginning of a totally new life, the online life that I have. My increasing CGPA took a U turn towards decrease and suddenly I was supposedly taken into the world of Rise of Nation (a computer game), Waste (peer to peer sharing software) and firefox. I no longer felt the urge to work on my academics as I had other things to worry in my life.

Its not that Internet had only negative effects on me, it had many positives too-

• I was addicted to yahoo messenger because I had this ludicrous gut feeling that someday I will meet a girl and fall in love. I am too shy to carry out this courageous act in reality but Internet offers a wonderful opportunity to people like me to really express themselves. If this girl has a reason to do PhD then I have a reason to blog! Anyway its all history now, perhaps sometimes later. But I have learned a lot from this experience which will be a part of my survival kit all my life, NEVER EVER INVEST EMOTIONS WITH SOMEONE OUTSIDE YOUR FAMILY (at least online).
• Internet opened new vistas of knowledge for me without which I would be considered an idiot. I read newspaper online daily, search for journal papers and blog.

Saying all this I fully and wholeheartedly suport the recent move in IIT Bombay to restrict the use of Internet

“Internet access will be barred between 11 p.m. and 12.30 p.m. at IIT-Mumbai’s 13 hostels to encourage students to sleep early and to try and force them out of their shells. There has been a decline in academic performance and also participation in sporting, cultural and social activities has gone down,� Gopalan said.[source]

I know its too late to put this restriction as the addiction will be too hard to overcome but then this initiative was always on the cards. I can fully understand IIT Bombay student’s woes. May be with time they will get used to it. This ban wouldn’t have a drastic affect on the present batch but definitely the coming batches.

Not just negligence in academics but there were many associated social issues. People were so addicted to they computers that they completely neglected other activities like sports and cultural. They stopped socializing; this can ruin the whole culture. One reason why IIT Madras performs so well in Inter-IIT sports meet is that fact that sports is still taken seriously here as Internet came in late here.