By: Karen Antonacci

To be honest, it irritates me when someone in my generation says they can’t understand something. Can’t? Or don’t want to? Let’s face it, anything that we, the last children of the ‘80s and the first of the ‘90s, want to learn is just a Web browser and a search engine away.
If you know how to Google something, you know how to learn something. I think our generation is so used to the World Wide Web, we forget how wondrous a tool it really is.
“Yes,” we say. “The Internet is nice. I can see what my roommate did last night or, you know, find pizza.”
Even worse, apparently, it’s not “in” to be genuinely interested and excited about something, whether it’s computers, typography, musical theater or anything else. Trolling the net is seen as being a waste of time, or even worse, a nerdy thing to do. I have a proposal though, let’s change that.
If you haven’t recently, you should spend a day being a pupil of the Interwebz. Wikipedia something and read all the related links. Google your house and then Google the opposite side of the planet. Trawl through the entire archive of TED talks, which has speeches from experts in almost every field. Watch a YouTube video about the latest tech in phones, then open a new tab and find out about the first one.
Even better, let’s learn new skills. You don’t need to be enrolled in a class to start learning something. There are video tutorials on how to achieve anything. Learn to write HTML or construct sweaters, or speak Swedish, or win an argument.
So here’s what I say we do: everyone get ridiculously excited over something you’re interested in and research the hell out of it. Maybe it’s not the coolest thing to do, being passionate about something, but it sure is more fun than not caring. And maybe we’ll be remembered for more than just being the vanguard of the Facebook generation. Maybe we can be the ones who
use the greatest tool to the fullest extent.