The following is a guest column written by SIU senior and journalism student Drake Hall…

How many times a day do you use the Internet? If you’re a college student, that might be a difficult question to answer. You might use your iPhone to check Facebook or Twitter first thing in the morning to see what your friends did last night. Maybe you want to stream some music while you get ready and check the weather so you know what to wear. Did you get all of your homework done? Better check Desire2Learn before you head out. While you’re at the computer you might as well respond to some emails and make a credit card payment. 

For college students, and most millennials for that matter, online activity is such a part of daily life that it’s hard to quantify. For a generation so dependent on the Internet, net neutrality is mostly taken for granted. A recent decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, has weakened the Federal Communications Commission and might mean the end of net neutrality. This could fundamentally change the way consumers access the Internet. College students, it’s time to pay attention.

Net neutrality refers to the idea that all Internet traffic should be treated equally by Internet service providers. Without it, companies could manipulate Internet access to benefit their corporate interests. For example, Comcast, a telecom company that owns NBC Universal and operates as an Internet service provider (ISP), could start slowing down their Internet customers’ download speeds when they try to access sites like fox.com or cbs.com.

Since 2010, net neutrality has been the law, albeit a weak one with lots of exemptions and exceptions (especially for mobile providers) under the FCC’s Open Internet Order. On Jan. 14, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decided the FCC had overextended its authority and struck down the order.

Until the courts decision in January, the FCC was regulating the Internet much like it does phone companies. The FCC considers phone companies common carriers, which allows for greater regulation. Verizon began arguing in 2011 that the FCC had already placed broadband in a different regulatory category than phone service and thus couldn’t impose common carrier restrictions on ISPs. The court agreed, citing the FCC’s prior decision to separate broadband and telephone service.

What does this mean for you? Well for one thing, things could start getting more expensive. Service providers could start charging more for content that takes up a significant amount of bandwidth, such as streaming video.

For many college students a cable bill isn’t in the budget so they turn to services like Netflix and Hulu, which provide a very similar experience at a fraction of the cost. The content provided by services like these takes up a substantial amount of space on a network, so companies like Verizon or Mediacom are now allowed to start charging more. They might charge Netflix and Hulu more for uploading the content, a charge that will be passed on to the consumer. They can also charge customers more for downloading that content, meaning consumers will pay more in two separate transactions for the same service.

Television and movies aren’t the only things that might become more expensive. There could eventually be surcharges for online gaming, video sharing (think YouTube and Vimeo) and even social networking.

Robert Spahr, an assistant professor of cinema and photography who teaches classes on web design and new media said, Internet service might start to look a lot like cable service. “The web would become like cable TV where you pay for packages of bandwidth,” Spahr said. You buy a package that has the New York Times, the Washington Post, and then you want to read the Huffington Post and you have to pay extra. That’s a very real thing.”

Your checking account might not be the only thing to take a hit if net neutrality becomes a thing of the past. Your opportunities are also at stake. Say you’re an eager young developer with the next great photo sharing site. Huge companies like Facebook (which owns Instagram, the current number one photo sharing network) and Flickr could pay service providers extra to make sure competitive sites are harder to access. Maybe you’re a blogger with some great insights about cars or fashion or gender inequality or Star Wars. Unless you pay a premium for producing content, your ideas might never get beyond your laptop.

All of these troubling scenarios, while entirely legal and certainly possible, are unlikely to happen all at once. For one thing, part of the court’s ruling says that ISPs have to disclose when they engage in discriminatory behavior and none of them are particularly eager to be the first to start enraging customers with video surcharges. Also some companies, like Comcast, are contractually (but temporarily) bound to net neutrality as part of a corporate merger deal.

Even though Netflix isn’t going to suddenly be more expensive tomorrow, the court has paved the way for some drastic changes to the way people access online content. Now is the time for consumers, especially those who can’t remember life before the Internet, to demand net neutrality.