The Internet is 20 years old, and I can barely remember the world without it.
Our first Mac (1997-ish) came with a super-fast modem (1400bps). We signed up for AOL, plugged it in and stared at each other in amazement at the staticky "connected" sound. We finally cancelled AOL after we got DSL at the cabin, and the customer service woman seemed genuinely sad. We'd had the account for 13 years.
In my web development class, we looked at the evolution of the White House web site from 1996 to 2009. It started out as a plain gray window with black type and a few blue, underlined hyperlinks. The following year, it featured a small color photo of the White House, and then gradually became more colorful and full of information. Today the first page of the site contains slide shows, video clips, and an extensive index to rich content.
While the site reveals how the web has changed, the class itself is an astonishing example of how the Internet has changed the world.
For one thing, I couldn't make it to class that night, so I watched it online a few days later. I ordered the textbooks online using a gift card, but I got an email notice that shipment would be delayed. No problem. I discovered that I could read the books for free on Pro Quest with my Harvard ID.
It's possible that I could complete a Harvard course entirely on my laptop without ever leaving the loveseat in my living room. And I don't have a souped-up laptop. It's 6 years old and a little clunky.
But the course is just the beginning.
Spencer was looking online at a house for sale in Vermont and went to Google maps to take an eye-level stroll down the street to the town center, past the newspaper office and the Yummy Wok restaurant.
Want a pair of golf knickers? Google the phrase to find GolfKnickers.com, where you can get knickers in dozens of colors and fabrics, plus coordinating argyle socks and sweaters.
Can't remember who played the father in the first Flipper movie? Ask a search engine, and you'll have the answer in three seconds.
I know I'm stating the obvious. For more than half the people on the planet, life without the Internet never was. For the rest of us, it's becoming a distant memory, but there was a time when you couldn't check the weather in Athens, Greece, and the only way you could find something like knickers was to visit several specialty shops or have them made.
And if you didn't actually go to class, you were out of luck.
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2 comments:
It's really mind-blowing when you stop to think about all the information we have available at (literally) our fingertips. Andrew and I will disagree about some minute fact, and all we have to do is walk to the computer to decide who is right (always me, of course ;-) ).
My parents didn't have much money when we were little, but we always had a computer. I remember how our first computer used DOS. We had those big floppy discs, then those smaller, hard discs before finally using CDs. We had Prodigy when internet was first available. I remember one of the presidential condidates (was it Bob Dole?) was mocked because he didn't say "www" when giving his campaign address when websites were still new to most people. Then we had AOL, and I remember trying to connect to different locations if one was too slow (remember how you could choose which phone number to connect to?).
What's funny is it effects my non-computer life as well. One time, I lost my car keys. I thought to myself, "I'll just do a search for them," before, of course, realizing I can't perform the cntrl + F search irl (in real life).
I wonder what things will be like as Oliver grows. It'll be interesting to see what our technology world brings.
I forgot about Prodigy.
Our first computer had a CD-ROM drive, and we didn't see why anyone would ever need that. But then Jesse got us some art history CD-ROMs, and we discovered an astonishing new world of media.
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