Friday, July 18, 2008

Internet Pop-Ups and What I Think of Them

Flashing mouse cursors. Animated screen savers. The "you-won-the-jackpot--millionth-customer" deal. What do I think of these?

Absolute junk.

As a harried student is frantically trying to do research for his school paper, he/she encounters several pop-ups. He/she shuts the window quickly and tries to continue on, but once again is blocked by another pop-up. As soon as this one is shut, there is a brief period of peace. And then again, another pop-up!

This is what many people face as they try to use the internet. The "try-out-new-cursors" pop-up with flashing hearts and smiley faces and who-knows-what-else doesn't even work! Even if by some miracle it does work, who wants some distracting, flashy cursor that they have to blankly stare at every time they get on the computer? Next, the screensavers. Fine, there's a cute little doggie dancing on the screen, or dolphins jumping in the air. But doesn't the screensaver start up when the computer isn't in use for a while? If the computer isn't in use, that means that YOU AREN'T USING THE COMPUTER, so YOU'RE NOT THERE TO SEE THE SCREENSAVER! Unless, of course, you're one of those people who find entertainment in sitting in front of a dusty screen with your eyes bugging and your drooling tongue hanging out of your mouth as you watch your amazing fabulous screensaver all day! Finally, the "you-won-blah-blah" pop-up. Did the inventors of this useless idea think that people would actually fall for it? If you click on the pop-up, you are taken to a page where you are requested to fill in all your personal information. Would you really give up all that information for something you don't even know is reliable? If you do fall for it and give your name, address, phone number, etc., you'll find that someone's now using your bank account, or you're being stalked by strange people in black! Whatever happens at any rate, I doubt you'll be getting your jackpot money.

I'm sorry if I have unintentionally offended anyone in this article, but I just wanted to say that people in charge of Internet pop-ups should think twice before sending them out, because they are very annoying to most people and are almost always ignored.

2 comments:

Maya Ganesan said...

Priya;

I wholly agree with your statements about Internet pop-ups. I, personally, have encountered some of these extremely irritating pop-ups and the constant need to close the windows distracts from the original content of the page.

You might consider the idea that the webmaster of the website using pop-ups would have an idea about it, and disable the pop-ups because it takes away from the website itself.

Some people are reluctant to go to websites with pop-ups(like me) and would much rather prefer a website completely devoid of these tiny, annoying windows with absolutely pointless information...if you could even call it information.

I enjoy the stands you are making about these idiotic ideas and things that have become a part of American society.

Maya

Nikki Carson (Katie) said...

Dear Priya,

Totallly! I agreee with the whole idea completely!
My mom plays word games a lot. There is this one game called Crickler, and when she plays it, every five minutes an ad pops up covering the whole screen and sits there for about a minute, with know way to get rid of it!

Sincerely,

Katie