Have you noticed lately that your mission to stay connected is resulting in strange behavior? Are you spending more hour and more and more time at Starbucks without purchasing any coffee? Has the public library turned into your home away from home, even though you hardly open a book? Do you find yourself lingering at airports long after your plane has landed to get your WiFi fix? If this sounds ordinary, you may be experiencing the signs of WiFi withdrawal. But you can take ease in the fact that you're not alone. WiFi enabled devices have started a communications transformation. Young Americans on the go are increasingly living more of their lives on the Internet.
Coffee, Tea, TV or WiFi?
Remember that exceptional quote from The Social Network: "First we lived on farms, then we lived in cities; and now we live on the Internet." A recent study by Wakefield Research for the Wi-Fi Alliance drives that point home. It discovered that two-thirds of 1000 millennial in the U.S. (ages 18 to 29) spend more hours on WiFi devices than they do watching TV. Seventy-five percent of young adults stated they would be muddier without WiFi access for a week than they would during a week without coffee or tea. According to the survey, millennial view WiFi as a necessity, not an indulgence. Almost 70% of young Americans devote greater than four hours daily using WiFi enabled devices. Without them, they claim it would be hard to keep up with family and friends. Evidently studying without wireless is no longer a viable option. Eighty-seven percent of U.S. participants said they need to have access to WiFi in schools and universities. On top of that, more than 50% stated they had to have WiFi in restaurants and retail areas. It makes you wonder how we ever managed to received an education or shop for groceries without WiFi.
The Crazy Things We Do to Get Connected
WiFi hungry road warriors have done some very weird things in their quest to connect. A Michigan man was fined $400 and given 40 hours of community service for hijacking an open WiFi connection outside a coffee shop for a week. How about you? Have you ever stolen a free WiFi connection without paying for a cup of coffee? Or maybe you've gone one long bus rides or cab rides in different cities in order to use free WiFi? At home, have you noticed yourself holding your laptop out the window, "borrowing" your neighbor's wireless network in order to save a few dollars? A creative young man studying abroad went one step further. He crafted a wireless antenna from a kitchen strainer, a magic marker and some Scotch tape. His main difficult task - holding the dish just right to keep it connected. We've also heard about people going on the roof to turn their television antennas into wireless Internet antennas. Well, that's enough of the wireless sociology class. Besides sliding off the roof or getting hit by lightning - or your neighbor - connecting to WiFi access points has other hazards. Here's how you can practice "safe access" when you connect to a public wireless network.
What You Can Do
Install a firewall and antivirus defense and make sure it's up to date.
Turn off file sharing options to prevent hackers from seeing your shared files and folders.
Check to confirm the access point you're connecting to is the real WiFi hotspot, not an Evil Twin. Recall, Evil Twins are great shams. When in doubt, ask the establishment where its WiFi hotspot is and what it should look like when connecting.
Stay away from accessing sensitive information such as bank accounts, passwords and credit card numbers when you're connecting to public WiFi networks.
Use a VPN (virtual private network) like Private WiFi to guarantee that your information goes through a secure tunnel that's invisible to hackers.
If you've done some crazy things to get connected - we'd like to hear about them. Tell us how your WiFi wanderlust turned out.
Jan Legnitto is an investigative journalist and documentary producer who writes about criminal justice and intelligence issues. Jan is also a frequent contributor to the Private I blogs on Private WiFi, Wireless Sensitive Information.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jan_Legnitto
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6163266
Coffee, Tea, TV or WiFi?
Remember that exceptional quote from The Social Network: "First we lived on farms, then we lived in cities; and now we live on the Internet." A recent study by Wakefield Research for the Wi-Fi Alliance drives that point home. It discovered that two-thirds of 1000 millennial in the U.S. (ages 18 to 29) spend more hours on WiFi devices than they do watching TV. Seventy-five percent of young adults stated they would be muddier without WiFi access for a week than they would during a week without coffee or tea. According to the survey, millennial view WiFi as a necessity, not an indulgence. Almost 70% of young Americans devote greater than four hours daily using WiFi enabled devices. Without them, they claim it would be hard to keep up with family and friends. Evidently studying without wireless is no longer a viable option. Eighty-seven percent of U.S. participants said they need to have access to WiFi in schools and universities. On top of that, more than 50% stated they had to have WiFi in restaurants and retail areas. It makes you wonder how we ever managed to received an education or shop for groceries without WiFi.
The Crazy Things We Do to Get Connected
WiFi hungry road warriors have done some very weird things in their quest to connect. A Michigan man was fined $400 and given 40 hours of community service for hijacking an open WiFi connection outside a coffee shop for a week. How about you? Have you ever stolen a free WiFi connection without paying for a cup of coffee? Or maybe you've gone one long bus rides or cab rides in different cities in order to use free WiFi? At home, have you noticed yourself holding your laptop out the window, "borrowing" your neighbor's wireless network in order to save a few dollars? A creative young man studying abroad went one step further. He crafted a wireless antenna from a kitchen strainer, a magic marker and some Scotch tape. His main difficult task - holding the dish just right to keep it connected. We've also heard about people going on the roof to turn their television antennas into wireless Internet antennas. Well, that's enough of the wireless sociology class. Besides sliding off the roof or getting hit by lightning - or your neighbor - connecting to WiFi access points has other hazards. Here's how you can practice "safe access" when you connect to a public wireless network.
What You Can Do
Install a firewall and antivirus defense and make sure it's up to date.
Turn off file sharing options to prevent hackers from seeing your shared files and folders.
Check to confirm the access point you're connecting to is the real WiFi hotspot, not an Evil Twin. Recall, Evil Twins are great shams. When in doubt, ask the establishment where its WiFi hotspot is and what it should look like when connecting.
Stay away from accessing sensitive information such as bank accounts, passwords and credit card numbers when you're connecting to public WiFi networks.
Use a VPN (virtual private network) like Private WiFi to guarantee that your information goes through a secure tunnel that's invisible to hackers.
If you've done some crazy things to get connected - we'd like to hear about them. Tell us how your WiFi wanderlust turned out.
Jan Legnitto is an investigative journalist and documentary producer who writes about criminal justice and intelligence issues. Jan is also a frequent contributor to the Private I blogs on Private WiFi, Wireless Sensitive Information.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jan_Legnitto
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6163266
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