I’m really starting to believe that people’s over-reliance on Internet technology and services is going to destroy our culture. (Yes, I do realize the irony in this; I’m complaining about overuse of networks technology by posting it on a blog, which is then promoted via Twitter.)

My first complaint has to do with the digitization of movies, music, books, games, and so forth. While being able to quickly download media certainly has its advantages, especially in terms of speed and viewing on the go, most people are too blind to realize that they’re essentially throwing their money away. I’ve ranted about the problems with downloadable media before, but it bears repeating. Instead of works of art, media are now more than ever becoming nothing but commodities to be bought and discarded, especially since they’ll be unusable years down the line.

In the same vein, we’ve got e-readers like the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes & Noble nook. Anything that gets people to read is always a good thing, if you ask me, but I’ve got concerns about privacy when it comes to the aforementioned devices. Many of these devices and their associated services keep track of every book or other text you download, browse, and read, not to mention most other activity performed on the devices. I’m sorry, my reading habits are my business, not anyone else’s! Even worse is that since the books are tied in through their respective services…Amazon, Barnes and Noble, et cetera can take your reading material away from you at any time.

Next, there’s the giant elephant in the room: network security. The more stuff that gets dumped on computers or on our global network, the more serious the security risks. People don’t realize how serious this is; most people still use incredibly simple passwords that are very easy for an attacker to crack, and also don’t monitor their bank accounts, credit score,s and so forth on a routine basis. Everyone thinks that identity theft or a similar crime couldn’t possibly happen to them, but the probability of data loss is much higher than you’d think.

Both my bank and health insurance company have each lost digital copies of personal information they had gathered. Both times, I’ve been given a free two-year subscription to an identity theft prevention service, but that’s not good enough: I’m going to have to subscribe to one of more of these services for the rest of my life now. Attackers aren’t stupid; if they steal data and its theft is made public, they’ll sit on it and use it when victims are more vulnerable. Identity theft protection isn’t cheap, but considering the alternative is some jackass trying to use my Social Security number, it’s a small price to pay.

Meanwhile, the popularity of sites like Facebook have contributed to a massive spike in KBAs (knowledge-based attacks) on computers and servers. For example, you know those security questions that many sites ask you if you lost your password? Such as “what’s the name of your pet” and so on? Well, far too many people are posting that information publicly on their Facebook pages! You’re practically inviting attackers to come after you! It’s yet another reason for me to avoid social networks like the plague.

Moving on, we’ve got the exponentially increasing number of people who are completely incapable of functioning as human beings without their goddamned cellphones. From the iPhone-obsessed to those idiots at concerts, it just keeps getting worse. What really pissed me off was that when I was in the hospital about two years ago, there was a “no cellphones” sign clearly posted on the floor where I was recovering…and a few of my hospital roommate’s visitors were yapping on their damned phones! If I hadn’t been so weak from my surgery, I would’ve strangled them with my IV tube.

Last but not least…let’s talk about Wikipedia. I’ll admit that I use it all the time to quickly look stuff up, but I never use it as a serious reference tool. For that, I’ll either follow citation links that lead to established reference materials, or I’ll go to the damned library. The problem is that most people do use Wikipedia as a serious reference tool, especially high school students. People just aren’t trying anymore.

We’ve got to be heading towards a breaking point, and whatever that point may be, it’s going to be very unpleasant.