Have you given much thought to how dependent we are on the internet?
Have you thought about how the technology just keeps cutting ahead and leaving us behind?
Have you wondered where all the technology came from in the first place?
Conundrums. Conun-drums. Conundrums.
I have spent the better part of the past two days sitting at my desk accessing the internet. My new computer and my high speed connection with MVTV have made using the internet very easy, a fast way to access information and a wonderful way to keep in touch with family and friends.
Almost every morning I check my email. The jokes are priceless. Today I failed a Giraffe Test and yesterday I came one question away from passing a Citizenship Test. (I knew I should have paid more attention to the amendments to the constitution.)
I started to think about the first time I turned on a computer and logged online. It was back in the mid 90s. YME had just gotten hooked up to the internet. It was a dial-up connection. The hookup was not high speed. The only search engine was Yahoo. I sat at the computer keyboard and went online. I typed Edgar Allan Poe in the search line. I waited and waited and waited. Finally, the screen changed and a message, a rather obnoxious, unfriendly message appeared across the screen that informed me I had tried to enter a site that was blocked. If I continued to try to access the site I would be reported to the school authorities.
What?
I went back to Yahoo and since I knew that something was amiss, I typed in Edgar Allan Poe again. Once again the message appeared. I tried a third time and you guessed it, the same message appeared again. Now, this is when I began to remember a definition of stupidity I had heard. Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
I went to the school’s internet coordinator and asked why I could not access any information on one of the most famous American authors of all time. The answer given me is that the site included information that was not suitable for high school age students.
O.K., I thought. So what good is a digital tool that restricts access on famous American authors to a teacher who teaches American Literature?
By now, a half hour had passed and I was not impressed.
I was not to be left out of the digital age. I did get a cell phone and finally warmed up to the internet. I still prefer to use the internet at home to avoid those obnoxious, unfriendly messages.
I have opened an account on one of those friend websites. (O.K. my granddaughter got my profile on the site and showed me how to use it.) I check the weather. I check my bank statement, I check my friend account and see what people I know across America are up to, I email family and friends, I do research for school assignments for my students, I research information about vacation spots, I buy airline tickets, I buy books and DVDs, and I send my column to the Trib to be proofed and inserted into the weekly paper you are reading.
Will I become an internet geek? I don’t think so. Given my druthers, I’d druther sit by the river on a log and watch the swift current whisk things by. I’d druther sit in the sun and smell fresh, cut grass. I’d druther sit and watch the sun flash across the still lake at sundown and listen for the calls of the loons from across the lake.
I appreciate the advantages of the internet, but I enjoy the little things so many of us take for granted every day.
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Have you given much thought to how dependent we are on the internet?
Have you thought about how the technology just keeps cutting ahead and leaving us behind?
Have you wondered where all the technology came from in the first place?
Conundrums. Conun-drums. Conundrums.
I have spent the better part of the past two days sitting at my desk accessing the internet. My new computer and my high speed connection with MVTV have made using the internet very easy, a fast way to access information and a wonderful way to keep in touch with family and friends.
Almost every morning I check my email. The jokes are priceless. Today I failed a Giraffe Test and yesterday I came one question away from passing a Citizenship Test. (I knew I should have paid more attention to the amendments to the constitution.)
I started to think about the first time I turned on a computer and logged online. It was back in the mid 90s. YME had just gotten hooked up to the internet. It was a dial-up connection. The hookup was not high speed. The only search engine was Yahoo. I sat at the computer keyboard and went online. I typed Edgar Allan Poe in the search line. I waited and waited and waited. Finally, the screen changed and a message, a rather obnoxious, unfriendly message appeared across the screen that informed me I had tried to enter a site that was blocked. If I continued to try to access the site I would be reported to the school authorities.
What?
I went back to Yahoo and since I knew that something was amiss, I typed in Edgar Allan Poe again. Once again the message appeared. I tried a third time and you guessed it, the same message appeared again. Now, this is when I began to remember a definition of stupidity I had heard. Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
I went to the school’s internet coordinator and asked why I could not access any information on one of the most famous American authors of all time. The answer given me is that the site included information that was not suitable for high school age students.
O.K., I thought. So what good is a digital tool that restricts access on famous American authors to a teacher who teaches American Literature?
By now, a half hour had passed and I was not impressed.
I was not to be left out of the digital age. I did get a cell phone and finally warmed up to the internet. I still prefer to use the internet at home to avoid those obnoxious, unfriendly messages.
I have opened an account on one of those friend websites. (O.K. my granddaughter got my profile on the site and showed me how to use it.) I check the weather. I check my bank statement, I check my friend account and see what people I know across America are up to, I email family and friends, I do research for school assignments for my students, I research information about vacation spots, I buy airline tickets, I buy books and DVDs, and I send my column to the Trib to be proofed and inserted into the weekly paper you are reading.
Will I become an internet geek? I don’t think so. Given my druthers, I’d druther sit by the river on a log and watch the swift current whisk things by. I’d druther sit in the sun and smell fresh, cut grass. I’d druther sit and watch the sun flash across the still lake at sundown and listen for the calls of the loons from across the lake.
I appreciate the advantages of the internet, but I enjoy the little things so many of us take for granted every day.
