For those of us who are old enough to remember life before the Internet, the World Wide Web, mobile data, and always-on worldwide connectivity, the mere existence of an online existence can still sometimes feel like a huge privilege. After all, many of us came of age during the ‘dark days’ when we still had to make actual phone calls and write letters using ink and paper to make any sort of plans or communicate how our lives were going.
For today’s college graduates, though, the Internet is just…part of life. For them, the Internet has always been around and, more importantly, has always been an integral part of the way we get things done. Heck, kids heading to junior high are even too young to remember a life without YouTube.
Kids today, man. For them, it isn’t about whether or not they have access to the internet; it is about the speed of that access. A website that isn’t fully set up, responsive and ready to go by the time they finish typing in the URL is too slow. And for kids who live in areas where fiber lines aren’t yet available, the internet is unbearably slow. A site that takes thirty seconds to load? Yikes! A Netflix movie that has to stop and buffer? Call the President! Fiber optic bundles offered by Frontier Internet service are making these types of inconveniences even more obsolete.
It’s easy to joke about the kids today and to remind ourselves that we used to get along without the internet just fine, but it’s also important to remember why the internet is great and–most importantly–why a free, open, and accessible internet is important for our contemporary lives.
Everyday conveniences
Before we talk about the big ways in which the internet is important, let’s look at a few of the seemingly little ways the internet has changed our lives for the better.
You’re at the store and you can’t find a price tag anywhere on the box of the mixer you want to buy. The store’s item scanners are down. So, you pull out your phone, take a picture of the barcode and viola! You find out how much it costs at that store as well as at nearby competitors. You discover that you can get it for $30 cheaper two blocks away. Score!
Your sister in law calls to ask you and your spouse out to dinner. You log into the family calendar–handily synced across half a dozen family devices–to find out whether you’re free on that night and set up a good time. While you’re on the phone, you do a quick Yelp search for family friendly restaurants with good food in her neighborhood and make a reservation at one that is highly rated. Viola! Dinner plans made!
Big changes
Raise your hand if you remember what it was like to have to go in to work to find out whether or not you had a full day of meetings or if you’d have time to work on that past due report. Raise your other hand if you still have to attend those meetings in person. Today, thanks to the internet, we can work–and collaborate–with anyone in the world from anywhere in the world. You can be employed by a company in Japan and hire an assistant who lives in Hamburg–without ever leaving your couch.
Furthermore, it is easier than ever, thanks to the cloud and its many tools and apps, you can set up your own international conglomerate from your garage and, unless someone actively searches for your street address, nobody will be any the wiser.
New devices every day
Thanks to Apple, you can now capture and send your heartbeat to anybody–well, anybody who also owns an apple watch. First it was big computers, then laptops. Then phones started gaining web access and then tablets helped us all go paperless. Now the chips that run our lives have been inserted into something the size of those huge casio watches we used to wear in the 80s and early 90s.
It makes us wonder what’s next. We can access the web via a watch now. Sure, Google Glass hasn’t really taken off, but how long is it before we simply have to put in contacts to access everything and everyone we know? We hope it’s soon! That would be cool.
It’s good to remind ourselves of these things once in a while or we might take them for granted. Remember: that handy hand-sized device that instantly connects you to everyone you know and every thought that has ever been had is a privilege!
Photograph by Descrier Images