Joys and Cautions on the Internet

      

The screen and keyboard can be a window to the world.

         This week my favorite singer in the entire world accepted my invitation to join me on Linkedin.   When I think about it, the internet has brought me a great many amusements and joys over the years.  I got an excellent job over the internet in the nineties.  I have made some wonderful friends over time on the internet, the kind who would drop everything for me.  When my youngest son died suddenly, my friends worldwide staged funerals and remembrance ceremonies for him, which coincided with the one we had for him there, on all ends of the Earth.  It was really helpful to know that while I was grieving the sudden loss of my son, that there was a remembrance ceremony with flowers and pictures taking place on an Australian beach, all because of connections and friendships made over the internet.  To help understand what had happened to my son, I was able to talk to an esteemed cardiologist in Barcelona, named Dr. Brugada. He assured me that Daniel had not died from the syndrome named for him, and that we needed to continue to look for answers.   Eventually,  medical articles we first read about on the internet in tandem with numerous consultations with pathologists yielded us the best answer on what had most likely happened to our son.  
       Much later, we saw the son we eventually adopted as a teen, at first on the internet.   We added dogs and horses to the farm courtesy of the internet.  Both of my books were brought to publication much faster than they would have been, because outlines, plans, chapter samples etc. occurred with the use of the internet.
             There is great power and great benefits to this new medium, but we must be careful.  Our privacy and potential for robbery, identity theft, and other crimes also exists there.  We must be careful not to write anything that we wouldn't wish to have published in a book, because once the material is out there, one may not be able to rebox it.  Young people especially need to carefully consider pictures they place on the internet.  A partying teen at college may not seem like the kind of employee a certain employer might want, even if you really are perfect for the position.
             Enjoy the internet, and be mindful.  Best wishes to everyone.