Next week I’m going into hospital for a knee operation. I’m not worried about the pain, or the months of rehabilitation afterwards. I’m worried about how I’m going to live five days without an internet connection.
I’d gladly exchange painkillers for a wifi connection. When we get the occasional problem with our broadband connection at home, I go crazy worrying that it’s going to be days or even weeks before we get it back.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’d gladly give up TV, telephones, game consoles, (some) food, warmth, comfort rather than lose my internet connectivity. At what point did connectivity become so important? I know there are people out there without connections, but it astounds me. I guess there are more important things, especially in developing countries, but in the first world, it’s quickly becoming essential to be within a metre or two from a computer with a connection. I guess with the advent of devices such as the IPhone, we’re going to be even closer to that connection than ever before. And we’ll subsequently fret even more when we’re cut off.
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2 comments:
In the good old days, where the mailman delivered mail several times of day, some people really got angry when the mail service was reduced to once per day. I guess they had the same feeling as we would, if we would suddenly downgrade our internet connection or even lose it.
It is not the internet by itself that has revolutionized our world, but the ways of cooperating. You write a blog post, and I comment it. That also exists outside the internet. We even had it with BBS systems, except that it did not have the same volume.
If we all lost internet connection tomorrow, would Wikipedia survive? Definitely yes. I would subscribe to it and I would contribute to it - also if it was per snail mail.
Internet got really important when most people used that instead of alternatives.
A netbook and a healthcare institution that understands that free wifi is essential.
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