Living, learning on the 'Net

By THOMAS MURSE
Collegian Arts Writer

Shoulders hunched over his desk, his face reflects the blue, emanating ultraviolet rays as his eyes remain wide and fixed on the computer screen. His fingers tap vigorously for a few seconds on the keyboard, then there is silence. Without opening his mouth, without moving, he acknowledges the screen, the information with a grunt.

Hanging on his wall, pinned to his corkboard is a white sheet of paper. It is an old test paper flipped on its reverse side. On it are jumbled letters, commas, dots -- "sites" -- scratched haphazardly in pencil. These are addresses of places he has discovered while surfing the Internet -- places ranging from the Florida State University Home Page to the San Jose Mercury News on-line newspaper to Playboy's March Playmate -- it is all here on the Internet.

Still, his eyes and concentration remain at the mercy of the blue-faced screen.

Alex Charissis (freshman-computer engineering) surfs the Internet for entertainment. He spends approximately two to three hours at a time hacking away at his keyboard, communicating with friends and relatives, downloading files, gathering and storing information, and playing games.

"No matter what kind of social life you have, you've always got to play games," Charissis said.

To college students, surfing the Internet has become a revolutionary way of consuming information, and in essence, learning. In fact, tinkering with the Internet can be so fun, some users find it as addictive as nicotine or alcohol.

Using Eudora on Microsoft Windows, Charissis "E-mails" his friends at Cornell University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his brother at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

"Tinkering -- that's what the Internet's for," Charissis said.

Today, he received nine new messages, one from his friend at Cornell: "Where are you guys? Why haven't you written me? Are you ignoring me?"

Using the World Wide Web, he entertains himself by exploring different "home pages," directories leading to more in-depth information, many containing colorful photos and interesting graphics.

"There's something out there for everyone," Charissis said. "It's addictive."

Although he admits tinkering on his computer can be addictive, he denies that he has become dependent on using it. His roommate, Kevin Gombert (freshman-mechanical engineering), disagrees. Gombert said it is rare to find his roommate anywhere but in front of the computer.

"He's definitely addicted. He's always playing around, trying to find out different stuff, but it doesn't bother me," Gombert said.

Charissis said one of the attractions of surfing the Internet is its lack of government regulation.

"The Internet is the world's largest functioning anarchy," Charissis said.

But if the proposed Communications Decency Act of 1995 becomes law, to the dismay of Internet users, the government could crack down on transmittal of obscene or indecent material over the global Internet.

This bill would allow the government to monitor everything and anything that appears on the screen, but Internet users say it is an invasion of privacy and is unconstitutional.

Gerald Santoro, resident programmer at the Center for Academic Computing, admitted that the Internet is currently unregulated and compares it to television. Like television, there is valuable information as well as junk, Santoro said.

Because government regulation is now almost nonexistent, it is the user's responsibility to determine what kind of function the Internet will serve in the future, he said.

"We, as critical consumers and publishers of information on the Internet will determine where the Internet goes in the future," Santoro said. "The Internet is allowing a synergistic effort to gather and store information."

Santoro said the Internet is a revolutionary way of learning because so many people "surf the net" for fun.

"It's a very healthy attitude to look at learning and education as fun," Santoro said.

The two main functions of the Internet are communication and cooperative learning, and creating electronic libraries and databases, Santoro said.

He said anyone can publish something on the Internet and have it read by thousands of people. He compares the Internet to a telephone network, in which one telephone is connected to every other telephone in the world and each telephone has an unique address.

Dan Bernitt, senior resident associate of the CAC, said he believes the main function of the Internet is to provide information and communication.

"The entertainment aspect is rather insignificant," Bernitt said. The Internet is being used mostly for educational purposes, like the innovative presentation of classroom material in subjects like mathematics, French and Japanese, he said.

Bernitt does agree, however, that surfing the Internet being considered "fun" is a positive approach to learning. He said there is so much information available through the touch of a button that it is impossible to not learn something.

"It's a whole new approach to reading," Bernitt said, "because it is fun to explore the endless possibilities."

The essence or backbone of the information superhighway is NetNews, where there is an infinite amount of information and access to sites, or addresses. Charissis explained that NetNews is like a phone book or tour book of the Internet.

After obtaining the address of a site, the user can access a number of games, files and photos. One site can direct the user to another site, almost like a big tree, Charissis said.

"There's so much stuff you can do -- there are infinite possibilities," he said.