pandemic forced us inside W r i t i n g

You’ve been discussing “Welcome to the Internet,” Burnham’s song about the internet. 

Discussions about the dangers and riches of the internet are especially relevant this year, because of course, the pandemic forced us inside. Normal social contacts, large groups, classrooms, offices, ballparks, barbecues with friends and family — everything’s gone inside, including this course!

In some ways, this presents a scary prospect. Here is Burnham again, from Inside, musing (sarcastically) on how this has affected him: 

Um, I’ve learned that real-world human-to-human tactile contact will kill you, and that all human interaction, whether it be social, political, spiritual, sexual, or interpersonal should be contained in the much more safe, much more real interior digital space.

That the outside world, the non-digital world, is merely a theatrical space in which one stages and records content for the much more real, much more vital digital space.

One should only engage with the outside world as one engages with a coal mine.

Suit up, gather what is needed, and return to the surface.

On the other hand – without social media, we would all have been truly alone. And thanks to the ease with which scientists can collaborate on research online, a coronavirus vaccine was produced in almost no time at all – and we’re learning about the disease at a pace which would have left twentieth-century scientists green with envy.

Question: Do you feel the internet is, on the whole, a danger or a force for good? Explain your answer with reference to one specific danger or advantage it has brought us. (NOTE: Perfectly OK to respond by saying that you can’t make your mind up – produce an example of each.)  

Requirements:

This response paper doesn’t have to be researched, or submitted to multiple drafts. It’s just a short first paper. But it’s very useful to me as a guide to what sort of support you might use. So try to make sure that it reflects, as accurately as possible, your skill level:

Try to apply what you remember from previous English classes about thesis, organization, development, and sentence skills;

Proofread as carefully as you can 

Don’t get help with proofreading or sentence writing