Thinking Out Loud
Google, Twitter, Yahoo & The Web

November 3, 2013
By: Diane Szczepanski

Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant ~ Mitchell Kapor

Yahoo was something we yelled when Mom and Dad said we were going to Cedar Point for a long weekend.

Google was what we girls did at all the cute neighborhood boys. Twitter was the sound of the birds on our walk up the driveway after a night out partying with friends. Amazon was a rain forest we learned about in Geography class. Playstation was a jungle gym on the school playground. Text was what was written in newspaper articles.

The web was the scene of all the action between Charlotte and Wilbur...My, times have changed...

To say things were "simpler then" is...well...too simple of a statement.

Our methods of receiving information were different. Our means of communicating were different and undoubtedly the speed we could have our questions answered were different.

But, I don't think anything was really any simpler or less stressful back in the old days, before cell phones and Ipods and Kindle's.

I still had bad hair days, my nylons still ran, the phone rang just as I dozed off for a nap and I still had car troubles. I still worried if the boys liked me, dreaded going to the dentist and stressed about cleaning the house. The lawn still needed mowing, snow had to be shoveled and the gutters cleaned out.

Saying things were "simpler then", in the implication they were "better", is a bit of a misnomer to me. I know there will always be stresses in life. It is too easy to glorify days gone by as more magical than they really were.

I like the world at my fingertips. I like being able to communicate in a variety of ways. I like having dinner ready in two and a half minutes. I like it all. Times may have changed, but my curiosity has not.

So, I'll stick with technology and the advances we make in our world to try new and innovative things. Any world that has afforded me the ability to text my son in the basement to bring up a soda, from the comforts of my couch, is the kind of simple world I want to live in. I'll look fondly at the days behind me, while I look forward to the new gadgets and changes to come.

And in the meantime, I'll keep working on my IPhone in the hopes I can actually figure it out. I'm bound to one of these days.