61) United

Remember when I told you about that speck of light in that new technological monument? You know, that Halo: Reach thingy?

Now that the game's been out for awhile, the monument has finally shut down (a personal Facebook message told me so), so let's take a look back on what was accomplished here.

Over the course of about a month, 118,422 people used their Facebook pages to post a contribution to the memorial. That's not counting the people who visited the site and didn't have an Facebook to contribute. (Rare these days, no?)

The dots came from all over the world, stretching from Milan to Osaka. Hell, they made a video about it:

In that earlier post, I talked about being united, having a sense of belonging. It all becomes much more satisfying once you know the numbers and statistics behind this little advertising campaign. People all over the world, many of whom will never meet each other, used the internet to share a single common passion. It's difficult to grasp that something like this, especially for a video game, could've happened just little over a decade ago.

That's what the internet revolution has done for us. If the new Facebook movie is any indication, it's that the internet plays a vital role in our lives. Instead of us mastering it, it now has the ability to master us.

It has the potential to bring us to tears, make us laugh, do stupid things, etc. Next to that, you've got the cultivation of a new online language as legal as ebonics, pictures of cats and their witty captions, or Youtube videos of morons hurting themselves.

I admit even I feel a bit internet incompetent sometimes. Coming from a seventeen-year old that spends 50% of his time on a computer, this might seem blasphemous. But then again, you don't see alot of seventeen year-olds these days convey information in readable grammar and spelling. (I try, anyway) Some of my peers would find this revulsive, just as their English teachers would cry tears over their texts.

Even a youngster like me can't help but feel a little slow when it comes to texting, Twittering, etc. I don't do texting or Twittering, but the fear exists in me that someday I might be forced to do it for some job or something.

Technology is indeed growing more generational by the day. Why a couple of days ago, I had a good laugh when my English teacher couldn't make his projector connect to his laptop. I sensed that he could feel our snickering eyes follow his every action, but when he finally got it to work, there was a loud and clear "Ha!" directed right back at us.

So there exists the possibility that when I'm old enough to be a sagacious teacher, I won't be able to keep up with technological trends. Who knows? By then paper books might be extinct, or they've perfected installing whole computers into a chip that can plug into your head.

At least I won't go it alone. As a generation, we can be united. Not necessarily to control the world with technology, but rather provide a voice of reason against technology controlling us.

For now, I can settle for being number 81,361 out of 118,422 little dots, all soldiers of an online generation.