Are you getting tired of the internet yet?

[Sheryl]

I think I'm tiring of the "entertainment" aspects, but I use it for finance and business, and all the practical things others have mentioned. I do get tired of looking at a screen sometimes, but I love the fact that I can surf while watching tv with my wireless dsl. I actually watch more tv now, because I used to get bored with sitting in front of the tube.

I think what is most addictive for me, is the instant access to any particular piece of information I might want at any time of the day or night. Some of it is probably useless, but I love the fact that it's THERE.

Before the internet, before the internet, I actually had to go to the library to look up something I wanted to know. How archaic does THAT seem??

I'm currently researching new car options, SO much easier with internet.

[wabmester]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheryl I'm currently researching new car options, SO much easier with internet.

That's what does it for me. It's a research tool. I can dig as deeply as I want into just about any subject (although you still have to pay for a lot of the "real" research). I can't imagine that I'll ever want to stop learning, and I imagine that both the depth and breadth of available information will continue to increase. The net is, and has always been, the Great Democratizer.

Well, that and pr0n....

[Danny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheryl I'm currently researching new car options, SO much easier with internet.

Me too, using Edmunds car compare feature right now, while watching baseball and emailing with my son.

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanTien Me too, using Edmunds car compare feature right now, while watching baseball and emailing with my son.

Your last point is a big one. I am lucky if I see my sons once every couple of weeks, but I IM with them on and off all day many days. Very often, my last act of the day is to say goodnight to one or both of them. My Dad and I didn't have this possibility. One of my sons is in China now, but I still get to talk with him and hear about what he is doing.

Ha

[Dawg52]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HaHa Your last point is a big one. I am lucky if I see my sons once every couple of weeks, but I IM with them on and off all day many days. Very often, my last act of the day is to say goodnight to one or both of them. My Dad and I didn't have this possibility. One of my sons is in China now, but I still get to talk with him and hear about what he is doing. Ha

Ha,
Just curious, is your son working in China?

[Nords]

"Are you getting tired of the internet yet?"

I wonder if everyone got tired of indoor toilets, indoor plumbing, water heaters, vaccines, & electricity? None of those hit their stride until at least 20-30 years of public use, and the WWW is only 12 years old.

When our cable TV signal burps, even my hardcore spouse who watches more TV than Harry of "Third Rock From the Sun", will find something else to do until our CATV company gets around to fixing it.

But if you want to see a real crisis, try pulling the plug on the DSL modem...

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DOG51 Ha, Just curious, is your son working in China?

Hi Dog,

He has a manufacturing plant in China. He works mostly in US, but he is in China now.

[HFWR]

I have some china at home; says so right on the bottom... :P

I use the internet connection more than I watch tv.

[Danny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords "But if you want to see a real crisis, try pulling the plug on the DSL modem...

Amen! I want my MTV WWW..

[dex]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords "Are you getting tired of the internet yet?" I wonder if everyone got tired of indoor toilets, indoor plumbing, water heaters, vaccines, & electricity? None of those hit their stride until at least 20-30 years of public use, and the WWW is only 12 years old. When our cable TV signal burps, even my hardcore spouse who watches more TV than Harry of "Third Rock From the Sun", will find something else to do until our CATV company gets around to fixing it. But if you want to see a real crisis, try pulling the plug on the DSL modem...

Re: toilets etc - the book "Faster" might interest you. Is the internet in the league with indoor toilets?

Or is the internet more like television. (I work in the TV industry and do not own a TV). Television with its 200+ channels is not worth watching for two reasons. Since I am 50 I've sceen all there is to see on TV. Secondly, TV is like drugs. There are some good aspects but they are more than outweighted than the negative aspect. As an exercise write down all the programs and hours spent watching TV. The average househould watches apx 38 hours/week of TV and is increasing (remember I work in TV). Is TV worth it? Think about all the things people could do with that time. But, just like drugs, we are addicted to TV.

I think the internet is becoming like TV and with convergence it will become TV. (Bellsouth is testing webTV where you can access any program you want. You program you own network.) There are alot of good aspects to the network but they are getting overwhelmed by the bad. Take a look at blogs - CNN is doing a segment on what they say - No gatekeepers, no factcheckers, just opinion. The opionion of a blooger on equal footing of the expert. Does this bring clarity or confusion?

"Faster"
Never in the history of the human race have so many had so much to do in so little time. That, anyway, is the impression most of us have of civilized life at the end of the millennium, and Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything only sharpens it. Elegantly composed and insightfully researched, Faster delivers a brisk volley of observations on how microchips, media, and economics, among other things, have accelerated the pace of everyday experience over the course of the manic 20th century.

Author of the pop-science triumph, Chaos, James Gleick brings his formidable writing skills to bear here, creating an almost poetic flow of ideas from what in other hands might have been just a mass of interesting facts and anecdotes. Whether tracing the modern history of chronometry (from Louis-François Cartier's invention of the wristwatch to the staggeringly precise atomic clocks of today's standards bureaus) or revealing the ways the camera has sped up our subjective sense of pace (from the freeze frames of Eadweard Muybridge's early photographic experiments to the jump cuts of MTV's latest videos), Gleick manages to weave in slyly perceptive or occasionally profound points about our increasingly hopped-up relationship to time. The result is the kind of thing only an accelerated culture like ours could have come up with: an instant classic. --Julian Dibbell--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly
Technological advances in time measurement and time-saving devices have been fueled by the ever-quickening pace of our lives. Or is it the other way around? Gleick, twice nominated for the National Book Award (for Chaos: Making a New Science and Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman), offers a refreshingly contrarian view of the notion of time management and of the instantaneity ("instant coffee, instant intimacy, instant replay, and instant gratification") of everyday life. Many of us exhibit what doctors and sociologists call "hurry sickness"Aarriving, for example, at an airport gate at the last possible minuteAan obsession ironically matched by endless waits on expressways and runways. "Gridlocked and Tarmacked are metonyms of our era," writes Gleick, "...to be stuck in place, our fastest engines idling all around us, as time passes and blood pressures rise." This paradox, and the "simultaneous fragmentation and overloading of human attention" that results, he contends, can be traced to a wide variety of everyday conveniences: microwaves and automatic dishwashers, express mail, beeper medicine, television remote control, even speed-dialing telephones ("Investing a half-hour in learning to program them is like advancing a hundred dollars to buy a year's supply of light bulbs at a penny discount"). Funny and irreverent, Gleick pinpoints the dilemma underlying many of today's technological improvements: that time-saving now comes more from "the tautening net of efficiency" than from raw speed, meaning that any snag in the systemAwhether a disabled airliner or one or two drivers unaccountably hitting the brakeAcan spread delay and confusion throughout the network. Paradoxically, too, the increasing pace and efficiency of our lives leads not to leisure and relaxation but to increased boredom: "a backwash within another mental state, the one called mania." This is a book to be studied... slowly. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

[justin]

I'm loving the internet. I think the "Faster" book sounds like a worthwhile read. So I googled the Amazon.com entry about it, read reviews, checked the length and cost to purchase, saw what the negative comments were about. Then I zipped to my local library's web page, logged in, found the book on their online catalog, hit "add to list" and now the book is waiting for me on my "to read" list, whenever I get time.

That is why I love the internet. 10 or 20 years ago, that act would have been impossible to do in 4 minutes.

[MJ]

It will be interesting to be see how I'll do when I go to Thailand for a month and access the internet for no more than an hour every couple of days (maybe).
Talk about withdrawal.
I won't be looking at my banking sites as I do daily because of internet cafe lack of security.
When I do more extensive travelling I'll get a rugged lightweight secure internet accessing device.

[HFWR]

When I see that herky, jerky, MTV, Blair Witch camera work, I think to myself:

"Hold the f***ing camera still"

[wabmester]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dex I think the internet is becoming like TV and with convergence it will become TV.

I think you have it backwards.* *The internet might subsume TV, just as it has newspapers, libraries, and porn videos, but I don't think it'll ever become like TV.* *At its core, the net is just high-speed bidirectional bandwidth.* * A lot of new functionality has grown up organically in that bandwidth soup, but it is also suitable as a replacement for DVDs, TV, telephones, and other old-fashioned devices.

But it's the new organic functionality that makes it "special."* *I've been an avid internet user since 1981, and it hasn't really changed dramatically since then.* *The first commercial providers added a bunch of noise and spam, but somehow I seem to be able to filter that stuff out.* *The web gave it a prettier face.* *The content is richer.* *And it's faster.* * Those seem to be the trends: faster, richer, prettier.

It's funny -- if you've ever played an online 3D game, you'll be blown away by the sophistication and interaction with other online players.* *But, it's not that much different in kind than MazeWar of 30 years ago.* *Just faster, richer, and prettier.

Edit: You know, I think the closest to a new app we've seen on the net is eBay. Although, people sold stuff on usenet in the old days, and eBay wasn't actually the first online auction (two points if you can remember who preceded them).

The big difference I see between the Internet and TV is that watching TV is so passive. *Just sit back and let it wash over you. *That's what I want at the end of a busy day. *

But October is "see how low I can get the electricty bill" month, so, for the first time in 10 years, I'm not leaving the computer on all the time (it and its peripherals use about 95 watts in standby, about 140 when in use). *It's a significant change.

Time to shut down.

[wabmester]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TromboneAl Time to shut down.

Or time to get a laptop.

[acg]

I am stuck in the 70's...Still do not have a computer at home...(and probably never will unless it is part of my next Big Screen TV, phone and cable purchase package deal! Tired of that, too!). My first and last computer purchase was the COMMODORE 100!

Just bought a cell phone (pre-paid T-mobile) a couple of months ago (gonna disconnect my land line due to major relocation move in ER). *Will NEVER use it while driving. Never needed to feel like I needed to be this "connected" before.

Being FIRE'd this Friday and looking forward to a peaceful co-existence with the world in a mud-hut bunker (just kidding).

Was considering a Lap Top to review financials and banking, but even think that will be too much of a hassle to lug around in Life after FIRE. Planning to be a vagabond living a PT lifestyle. *8) No more hassles, no more worries. Hurray!

Will have to go to the library or internet cafe to check out the posts.