The Internet - How Did We Survive?
This past Christmas we experienced quite an ice storm here in Canada, leaving thousands without power for a week and hundreds without internet or TV. Let me add that this is not by any means me complaining about what we as Canadians went through as I do realize this is absolutely nothing to deal with in terms of what others have endured in the past.
After said ice storm, my family and I were fortunate enough to only be affected by the latter of the two. This was a mere inconvenience, if you can even call it that, compared to the people that were without power for a week, lost food or had no heat. My parents were among those thousands of people that had to deal with that problem. I did find myself a little annoyed at the fact that I couldn’t just grab my laptop or head downstairs to my man cave and hop on the desktop and get on that information highway otherwise known as the internet. I also know for a fact that I wasn’t the only one feeling this frustration or annoyance as some friends were feeling that same annoyed feeling. My kids were a little more annoyed at the fact they couldn’t watch TV OR connect to the internet.
This unfortunate inconvenience got me thinking about just how dependent we have become on modern technology and more specifically the internet. Seriously, when you think about it in the grand scheme of things this doesn’t mean a damn thing! It is not a necessity or important to life or survival for that matter. Now before anyone goes off about the people who rely on the internet to make a living (stock brokers, traders etc.) that’s a bit of a different animal. For the average Joe that is just surfing the net for pleasure, it’s just not a necessity or an integral part of human survival yet sometimes we feel like we cannot survive without it. Yes at times this has even included me, maybe not to that degree of seriousness but you get the idea.
I guess I am just trying to figure out when we became so dependent on technology? Did society create this need or did we do it to ourselves? Give it some thought the next time you feel yourself NEEDING to connect to the internet.
Thanks to a good friend of mine for planting the seed and inspiration for this post. You know who you are!
Image courtesy of marketingbones.com