Thinkin' bout the internets
I have been thinking a lot about life before the internet and what life would be like today without the internet. My generation grew up with television so we don't tend to be in awe so much over being able to flick a switch on a box and watch idiots do idiotic things. I know at least that I have come to expect it.
Now that we have the internet, television almost seems archaic. All the equipment and rigamarole that is involved in airing something over television makes the internet look like a palm pilot compared to a desktop computer. Something like that.
Sometimes I'll be somewhere doing some bureaucratic something and someone will ask: "Do you have internet?" It makes me realize how much I've come to take the internet for granted. Do you ever stop to think about how you functioned day to day without the internet?
We had to use the phone more often.
We had to wait longer for news from friends via snail mail.
We had to visit the library more often.
If we had a question about somethingerother, there was nil chance of being misinformed by wikipedia.
And what about internet dating? How many people would never have met if it weren't for the internet?
A man once said to me, "If email was invented before the phone, no one would use email anymore." That puts a new twist on things for sure.
I asked a friend of mine in an email to take a few moments to ponder life before internet and he has given me permission to share his thoughts with you here:
"It was a dark and absolutely horrid time my child...we must never speak of it again, lest you remind me of those days holding a pencil, yes, a pencil, betwixt these fingers as I set about forming words via various hand drawn shapes upon pieces of paper and snail-mailing that paper off to some distant friend. Dear God, the waiting...the waiting for a response! A most dreadful period in our history lad and you should be ever the more pleased you didn't have to suffer through such an age as I did."
My friend doesn't usually talk like Benjamin Franklin, so I don't know exactly what's up with that except he has expressed quite well the stifling emotion during the pre-internet era.
Only the internet has made it possible for us to be curious and then instantly satisfied as to what is going on in the world. We no longer have to rely solely on the "experts" and the journalists.
Who knew we had so much to say? Who knew how much we wanted to know?
Let us just take a moment to think about how different our lives would be if it weren't for the internet connecting us to people we would never have known otherwise, for the chance to blog and share insights and humor with people around the world and to maybe make a difference in someone's life that otherwise we wouldn't have.
Posted by dandydandy
February 07, 2008
go back | random brainstorm | go forth
Rachel Ray - 2009-05-03
The cold wind was the reason - 2009-03-02
The Collected Wisdom of Angela Chase - 2009-02-15
All's well that ends well. - 2009-01-07
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. - 2008-10-04
