Being a 24 year old this is a terrain I am not all to familiar with.. that feeling of not having the ability to look something up. Sometimes I long for a world where the all-be-it very helpful smartphones, social media apps, etc... were not a thing. Just to see what life was like before this existed! And yet, all we can simply do in our present moment is look at the joys the internet has brought us, and think of ideas to make our experiences with the internet better..
And there would be no way to look it up, no way to prove who was right, except if someone had a little booklet. “Anyone got a little booklet?” you’d ask, looking around. “Is there a booklet on this shit?
For things like the example of identifying a mineral sample, things weren't too bad, a decent library, if you lived in a medium or larger city, would have had plenty of information, but you would have to walk or drive to the library. Slightly more obscure stuff was still not too much of a problem, a decent librarian would know where to look to find what you needed to know even if it took a loan from another library. Not instant gratification, but still, it wasn't too bad. What wasn't so easy to find was very, very specific pieces of information. Last year my truck started to develope a puddle in the right passenger foot area when it would rain. It was not at all obvious where it came from, and it couldn't be duplicated with a hose. In the old days, you could go to the library and read every service manual they had for the car, and you'd be no closer to the problem. The only people you could ask about the problem were car mechanics. It'd be rude to ask for a free diagnosis then try to fix it yourself, so you'd have to pay to have it fixed. But then the mechanic had the same problem if they already didn't know the answer. They'd have to start asking other mechanics about it, they'd have the same manuals the library did, and they sure wouldn't help. If no one they reached knew, they'd have to put a lot of expensive billed time into figuring out the problem, which in this case would have been hard to find. But today with the internet, all I had to do was a simple Google search and I learned from someone else who'd had the same problem that all I had to do was take the wheel off, take out the plastic inner fender, then unscrew a metal shield that I could barely reach, then dab a little silicone sealer underneath a tube that sticks out of the firewall. Obscure information like that is where we have it all over people in the bad old days. I fixed what would have been a really tricky, maybe expensive, problem for a few cents of silicon sealer and about 90 minutes time. I'd really miss the internet if it were to go away.
I first got on the internet in 1980 when I started college. My access was pretty sporadic until the early '90s about when the first web browsers thater getting popular. I was about 30 then. The only real difference has been that I spend more time reading about my hobbies now and less time doing them. Since they're hobbies, I suppose that doesn't matter. I was always reading in my spare time even before the internet became big, the big difference there was that I subscribed to magazines and papers and spent more time at the library, now that time is spent on the screen. One real positive improvement has been finding places like Readup and other online venues to discuss what I'm reading or doing with hobbies.
This little article got me thinking. I first had to look up when the internet became more mainstream and it seems like that was about 30 years ago. I was 35, working part time from home and engaged with raising my two children, ages 5 and 2. Back then, most of my information came from books and magazines (New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Time). Barnes and Noble was a favorite place to go for coffee and reading. The library also. I reached out more on the phone to keep in touch with family and friends. I did a LOT of home made cooking and entertaining. We went to museums, parks, the beach and boardwalk. I had a friend whose kids were the same ages and we all loved to do art projects and be in nature. She and I were also work out partners. It was a very fun, creative and active time. I can’t remember using the internet much, if at all. I certainly see the benefits and I keep my screen time low. ReadUp is a mainstay, as is writing my sister everyday for the past 7 years. Both have been pure joy.
I’m so glad to have gone through school without Facebook
Being a 24 year old this is a terrain I am not all to familiar with.. that feeling of not having the ability to look something up. Sometimes I long for a world where the all-be-it very helpful smartphones, social media apps, etc... were not a thing. Just to see what life was like before this existed! And yet, all we can simply do in our present moment is look at the joys the internet has brought us, and think of ideas to make our experiences with the internet better..
For things like the example of identifying a mineral sample, things weren't too bad, a decent library, if you lived in a medium or larger city, would have had plenty of information, but you would have to walk or drive to the library. Slightly more obscure stuff was still not too much of a problem, a decent librarian would know where to look to find what you needed to know even if it took a loan from another library. Not instant gratification, but still, it wasn't too bad. What wasn't so easy to find was very, very specific pieces of information. Last year my truck started to develope a puddle in the right passenger foot area when it would rain. It was not at all obvious where it came from, and it couldn't be duplicated with a hose. In the old days, you could go to the library and read every service manual they had for the car, and you'd be no closer to the problem. The only people you could ask about the problem were car mechanics. It'd be rude to ask for a free diagnosis then try to fix it yourself, so you'd have to pay to have it fixed. But then the mechanic had the same problem if they already didn't know the answer. They'd have to start asking other mechanics about it, they'd have the same manuals the library did, and they sure wouldn't help. If no one they reached knew, they'd have to put a lot of expensive billed time into figuring out the problem, which in this case would have been hard to find. But today with the internet, all I had to do was a simple Google search and I learned from someone else who'd had the same problem that all I had to do was take the wheel off, take out the plastic inner fender, then unscrew a metal shield that I could barely reach, then dab a little silicone sealer underneath a tube that sticks out of the firewall. Obscure information like that is where we have it all over people in the bad old days. I fixed what would have been a really tricky, maybe expensive, problem for a few cents of silicon sealer and about 90 minutes time. I'd really miss the internet if it were to go away.
I first got on the internet in 1980 when I started college. My access was pretty sporadic until the early '90s about when the first web browsers thater getting popular. I was about 30 then. The only real difference has been that I spend more time reading about my hobbies now and less time doing them. Since they're hobbies, I suppose that doesn't matter. I was always reading in my spare time even before the internet became big, the big difference there was that I subscribed to magazines and papers and spent more time at the library, now that time is spent on the screen. One real positive improvement has been finding places like Readup and other online venues to discuss what I'm reading or doing with hobbies.
This little article got me thinking. I first had to look up when the internet became more mainstream and it seems like that was about 30 years ago. I was 35, working part time from home and engaged with raising my two children, ages 5 and 2. Back then, most of my information came from books and magazines (New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Time). Barnes and Noble was a favorite place to go for coffee and reading. The library also. I reached out more on the phone to keep in touch with family and friends. I did a LOT of home made cooking and entertaining. We went to museums, parks, the beach and boardwalk. I had a friend whose kids were the same ages and we all loved to do art projects and be in nature. She and I were also work out partners. It was a very fun, creative and active time. I can’t remember using the internet much, if at all. I certainly see the benefits and I keep my screen time low. ReadUp is a mainstay, as is writing my sister everyday for the past 7 years. Both have been pure joy.