I have nothing against shopping
online. I think there are still some people who feel a little sketchy about the
security of it or paranoid about the privacy of it, but I’ve always figured that
I’m just as likely to be robbed in person. The difference is if I’m robbed in
cyberspace, I’m less likely to be assaulted on top of it.
The
Internet’s emergence from its “primitive” origins seems to have moved awfully
fast, but maybe it just seems that way because I was actually here for the
birth of the Information Highway. I remember the Internet when it was just a
drooling baby; now, it’s a sassy teenager getting ready to head off to five, I
mean four, years of college.
I read
one time that computer technology’s growth, by its nature, is exponential,
based perhaps (if I am remembering correctly) on miniaturization and the way
microchips work. If that’s true, the world, even 10 years from now, might look
much different than it does now. It’s always hard to imagine the nature of what
the next revolution might be, and then it comes along and we wonder how we ever
got along without it. Like snuggies.
The
year I first discovered the Internet was either 1996 or ’97, in college, when a
few buddies and myself were gathered around a computer in one of our public
labs. The lab was basically for students who couldn’t afford their own computer
or word processor (Remember word processors? Mine was circa 1880).
My friend Randy was showing us this
new thing called email. He would click on a button, and outlines of images
would begin to formulate, and then start to fill in very slowly, like an
avant-garde motion graphic short, and the modem (though I had no idea what a
modem was then) made a strange humming sound when you turned it on like an
alien beehive stirring to life. My first impression was that it would probably
be something only “computer guys” would use. I was still convinced that
computers were solely for homework, solitaire and minesweeper and not
necessarily in that order.
Indifference is always my first
reaction to new-fangled-what-have-yous. I was one of the last Americans to own
a cell phone (If you still don’t own a cell phone; you win). I never understood
the appeal of people being able to reach me every minute of the day. To be
honest, I still don’t, but now any time I leave the house without my cell
phone, the wife and I react as if one of the children is missing. “How are we going
to live for an hour without our cell phone?” My wife asks.
“If we
just stick together, we’ll make it through,” I say with false bravado.
I don’t
blame us (maybe pity us a bit). Our perspectives change with each new
revolution. Today, when I take my daughters out for a drive, I strap them into
their car seats like I’m preparing them for a space launch. When I was a child,
if I found a seat belt anywhere near me, it was usually either broken or buried
so far down the cushion that extraction was only possible with the aid of large
machinery. I imagine in 30 years, children will be riding around cars in hockey
goalie helmets and body armor, inside air-compression capsules. My daughters
will grow up and become appalled that they rode in cars in flimsy plastic
chairs and not in air-compression capsules.
I
wonder if there will always be a next revolution or if there is a diminishing
end to all of the progress. The next revolution could be something simple, like
a new variation on an old thing, the same way something like digitalization
improved photography, or it may be something totally crazy like anti-aging
medicines and actual immortality. (See this article if you want to delve into
the subject a bit)
The odd
thing is how each revolution changes how we are informed but also how we view
the world and how much we value something. It reminds me how contextual life is
and how much of my opinion is informed by the exact timeframe I am living in.
The way my parents transported me in vehicles is considered criminal today.
That was less than 30 years ago. The world, it be a’ changing and fast-like.
It is
interesting what the revolutions reveal to us and about us, and how easily they
can transform my life, my opinions and even my belief system, without even my
complete awareness. The revolutions, the sheer speed of them, sometimes create
a sense of panic within me, like we’re on a train, downhill, with no brakes. How
could one even keep track of it all—this peculiar oversaturation of media? The world
is a’ changing—faster than ever but it may be more accurate to say that it’s
accumulating. The new thing becomes the old thing so fast that I can’t keep
track of which is which. The train just speeds along, gathering more and more gadgets and gizmos along the way. Jumping on isn’t always
easy, but once you do, jumping off is even harder.
