The world of technology is not slowing down it seems and our dependency on it seems to be ever increasing.
While this is not to say there aren’t many wonderful assets to much of this new techno era, it can also have a pretty negative down side.
As many know, the endless information and ability to learn more than one would have thought possible even ten years ago, is mind blowing thanks to the Internet.
There is very little we can’t learn thanks to Google.
It is also a wonderful creation when it comes to communication as we can now talk to people anywhere in the world for free via e-mail, MSN or Skype. This is a big asset in my life as it allows my children to talk to their grandparents who live more than 5,800 km away in a face-to-face way almost daily.
They get to draw pictures to share with them or show off medals and awards without waiting for the once a year visit.
For me, being able to e-mail people and conduct business around the world from the comfort of my own home has been instrumental in creating many projects and it has also allowed me to work from home.
When it comes to things like the newspaper it has literally made the Three Rivers Report possible and without computers and digital camera’s we would not be able to do this. However, as I mentioned earlier, it has it’s down side too especially when the internet or computers crash! All of a sudden we seem to be rendered helpless. Years ago a power outage wouldn’t have mattered in the newspaper world as we put together editions in a far different manner. We also had to mail our pages to the printers instead of sending them electronically through the wires. Not having internet this week, thanks to the woodpeckers I truly enjoy, has been quite the eye opener on just how dependent I have become on this world of technology. With that said, it really has so many advantages, but when it all of a sudden stops working… so too do many jobs I have. Computers crashing is another horror show for someone who depends on them to work and communicate with the world. Then there are cell phones and bank cards that can leave us high and dry. I am sure I am not the only person who seems to have stopped carrying cash and then all of a sudden the interact goes down or the banks have a computer program problem and we are stranded at the till in the grocery store with no options and left wondering how we got to this point. Or how about your phone dying and you lose all your contacts where before we used to have actual address books.
So this week as I sit and type out my thoughts on the computer but can’t share them as my internet is down, I couldn’t help but ask myself when was the last time I wrote a letter with a pen? Or walked down the road to ask a friend a question instead of picking up the phone? Or carried cash in my wallet which seemed to keep me from over spending?
But alas, while these are good questions, the most important one right now is… when will my internet be fixed?