Have you noticed recently that your mission to stay connected is resulting in weird behavior? Are you spending more hour and more and more hours at Starbucks without buying a drink? Has the public library become your home away from home, even though you hardly open a book? Do you find yourself hang around at airports long after your flight has landed to get your WiFi fix?

If this sounds familiar , you may be experiencing the indicators of WiFi withdrawal. But you can take comfort in the fact that you’re not alone . WiFi enabled devices have generated a communications transformation. Young Americans on the go are increasingly living more of their lives on the Internet.

Coffee, Tea, TV or WiFi?

Recall that exceptional line 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 message home. It found that two thirds of 1000 millennials in the U.S. (ages 18 to 29) spend more time on WiFi techonolgies than they do watching television . Seventy-five percent of young adults said they would be moodier sans WiFi access for a week than they would during a week without coffee or tea.

According to the survey, millennials consider WiFi as a necessity , not a indulgence. Almost 70% of young Americans devote more than four hours a day 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. respondents said they have to have access to WiFi in schools and colleges. On top of that , more than 50% said they had to have WiFi in eateries and retail areas. It makes you consider how we ever managed to received an education or shop for groceries without WiFi.

The Crazy Stuff We Do to Get Connected

WiFi starved road warriors have done some pretty weird things in their quest to connect. A Michigan man was fined $400 and given 40 hours of community service for piggybacking on an open WiFi connection outside a coffee shop for a week. What about you? Have you ever grabbed a free WiFi connection without buying a cup of coffee? Or maybe you’ve gone one long bus rides or cab rides in different placed in order to use free WiFi?

In your home, have you noticed yourself holding your laptop out the window, “borrowing” your neighbor’s wireless network in order to save a few dollars? An enterprising young man studying abroad went one step further. He built a wireless antenna from a kitchen strainer, a magic marker and some Scotch tape. His main challenge – holding the dish just right to keep it connected.

We’ve also heard about individuals taking to the roof to turn their TV antennas into wireless Internet antennas.

Well, that’s enough of the WiFi sociology course . Besides falling 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 hotspot .

What You Can Do

– Load a firewall and antivirus defense and make sure it’s current.

– Turn off file sharing options to stop hackers from seeing your shared documentsand folders.

– Check to confirm the access point you’re using is the real WiFi hotspot, not an Evil Twin. Remember , Evil Twins are great shams. When you’re not sure, ask the establishment where its WiFi hotspot is and what it is supposed to look like when connecting.

– Stay away from accessing private information such as bank accounts, passwords and credit card numbers when you’re using a public WiFi networks.

– Use a VPN (virtual private network) like Private WiFi to guarantee that your information travels through a secure tunnel that’s undectable to hackers.

If you’ve done some wild things to get connected – we’d like to hear about them. Tell us how your WiFi wanderlust turned out.

Author Bio: 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, Public Hotspot, Secure Tunnel, VPN

Category: Internet
Keywords: WiFi, wireless, WiFi hotspot, wireless access points, VPN, public WiFi networks, WiFi access point,