Why Won't You Let Me Study The Internet?

[Nathaniel]

I like to think that I was born just in time to live through the first truly global revolution. I am a 20 year old student who has watched computers and the internet transform the world. Unlike my predecessors, I rarely watch live TV, never listen to the radio and haven't bought a CD in nearly a decade (last one was Offspring's Americana). Between my fraternity, my campus, my city's wifi initiative and my job I have access to at least one broadband wireless internet connection at any given time. I get excited when I get a single letter of normal mail even though I send more e-mails in a single day than my parents do in a month. My world is different than earlier generations, it is functionally held together by the world wide web.

Simultaneously I live in a world driven by education. I attended a pre-preschool (no, that's not a typo) when I was two years old and have been in school ever since. I am now in my second year of college and just realized I am surrounded by a substantial problem. A major paradox exists in American higher education. Academia is perpetually moving technology forward with cutting edge research while constantly falling behind business in terms of technological commitment.

While I am currently expected to do research, collaborate, and turn in my assignments online I am not given the resources to learn specifically about the medium that drives it all. The major universities (with the exception of Stanford) simply haven't committed to the internet and as such, there is no way to major in something like internet science. I am not offered classes like SEO 290 or Social Networking 300.

But why not?

I believe the reason I can't formally study the internet is because there are no formal teachers available. Everyone making a difference in the industry is just that, in the industry. They are not retired and certainly not teaching at universities. It seems that my generation will have to wait until tomorrow to learn about the technological force that is so prevalent today.

My solution?

The closest I have found to studying the internet is to study Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Although I can't do it at school, I have realized that by studying SEO I am effectively able to study the internet on a high level. Social media hints at its culture, viral marketing unveils the influencers and link building demonstrates the internet's architecture. Search engine optimization is not limited to tips and tricks, it is intimately intertwined with the web itself.

While I wait for academia to catch up with my peers, the first internet generation, I will continue to practice, study and uncover SEO techniques. That is precisely why I intern here. Maybe one day I will have learned enough to become one of the university professors that I now so desperately need.

Danny Dover