By: Tyler Dale, Opinions Editor
Our generation is a very proud one. You’ve all heard the phrase “only 90s kids would understand.” We’ve all thought it. And I think we’re entitled to that pride. Our generation has been put through the gauntlet. We have survived and surmounted a lot: Y2K, Britney Spears, The Bush Administration; I could go on for days.
But there’s one obstacle that eclipses them all. You all know what I’m talking about; our Trail of Tears, our Great Depression, our Cold War: dial-up Internet. It’s something kids these days just don’t understand.
Remember when we actually had to go outside to have fun? It was terrible. We here at Piedmont are getting our chance to re-live the 90’s, and it’s not as nostalgic as you’d like to think.
Upon returning to school, I’m sure most of you noticed that our Internet, particularly in the dorms is… well… slow. Really slow. Unfortunately, though, this is a more complicated phase in our lives. We can’t simply go outside and research, or submit a paper to our professor from the playground.
We have real work to do, and in a digital age, we need a digitally capable campus. Because of our WiFi problems, we haven’t been able to work efficiently, and therefore, our learning is halted. And that’s the reason we’re all here, right?
Sure, it would be awesome if I could learn everything I need to know about the rock cycle by going outside and looking at rocks, but let’s be real. It’s not the 90s anymore. That doesn’t happen. Besides, I don’t think there are any active volcanoes around Piedmont, so I would be cheating myself of the details I could obtain through Google.
Not only is work inhibited, but entertainment as well. It’s not like I can go climb a tree and immediately be caught up on this week’s Breaking Bad. Don’t get me wrong, but that would be fantastic, but this is 2013; we can’t continue to hold onto a bygone era. Someone also thought it would be a good idea to block media streaming sites such as Netflix, in order to improve the bandwidth. Of course, it was quickly recognized how destructive that was after two on-campus parties were busted. The Internet is only used for work about 15 percent of the time. The rest is Netflix. Take that away, and all you have left is anarchy.
It’s a very simple concept: you can put the kid back into the 90s, but you can’t put the 90s back into the kid. We simply are no longer wired to function in the barbaric age of our youth. Usually when I walk outside I just get confused. Did you know that spiders live outside? That’s terrifying. There are no spiders on Netflix, unless you want them to be. And even then they’re not real. So Piedmont, without our Internet all we have left is spiders. And that’s awful.