Even Homeless, You Have to Be Connected

In the Wall Street Journal recently there was an article about homeless people who, despite being homeless, manage to still maintain internet access in order to remain a part of online communities. The story is here if you want to read it, but it basically describes, using the homeless as an example, how tied we, as a culture, are to our computers, and the Internet as a whole. I lived without the Internet for a month (April of 2009), and I was nearly driven insane. I couldn't check Facebook to see what my friends, who I don't care enough about to call or text them, were doing, I couldn't blog, I couldn't check my e-mail, and I didn't know what was going on in the world, since I couldn't get to the New York Times website, and I don't trust network television and CNN is just a collossal waste of money (they had f*cking holograms on Election Night! Not even real, Star Wars-esque holograms. It looked like they took a video of will.i.am and cut his image out and pasted it in front of Wolf Blitzer. The thing looked sh*tty as hell. And I bet it cost eighteen f*cking million dollars). They say they're unbiased and all that crap, but they're just burning money.

Anyway, before I get too off-topic, I wanted to mention how, even though someone may homeless, the person can't completely sever their ties with the Internet. According to the article, the privelege of computer use at one shelter became so desired and popular that the shelter was forced to limit it to thirty minute sessions.

Wow. I am speechless. I can't even comment on that. Really, besides searching for a job and keeping in touch with other homeless folks*, why are you using the computer for so long? I mean, what are you doing that would require the shelter where you get your Internet fix to limit session time, because I doubt that the homeless are going to http://www.miniclips.com/ to play games or something. They're probably not playing Runescape, because that's just sad. And I know that they're not popping in World of Warcraft and doing that for half an hour. I mean if you're living on the streets or in a shelter, what business at all do you have going to the shelter and hogging the computer playing online games?

Seriously. I think that no one has their priorities this screwed up. But, on the off chance that any homeless person actually does this, they should go to China. There's no problem with unnecessary Internet use over there.

But honestly, we as a country need to cut down on frivolous Internet usage. I have a presentation due for work tomorrow and I have spent five hours not doing it, instead writing this post, reading the Times and sporadically looking for images that I can use for it. My teammates are going to be so disappointed.

*By the way, according to John Grisham in The Street Lawyer, homeless people know everything that goes on.