Calling all old people...

[Skanky Vamp]

I was reading another thread and a person said 'i just checked google' and then I thought.. I cannot remember my life without google. I mean, I suppose I read the paper and watched the news and stole books from the library and what not to research things... but man. I honestly cannot remember how SIMPLER it all was.. and really, it was. I am starting to think it was better. Filtering and slowing down the rate at which information found you, versus now when you can be inundated with facts and figures and videos and countless things that you would never (odds are at least) have known about before. End of ramble.

So all older people that can (for the most part at least) remember a difference... would you remove the wealth of information and 'conversations' at your fingertips for a slower paced less stimuli. I am starting to think living in the mountains with dial-up internet might be ok afterall!

 

[Madbil]

I always loved gadgets as a kid and I always thought I was born in the wrong decade. (80's would of been perfect!). Wouldn't mind living in the mountains as long as I had a mega satellite dish in my garden 🙂 The Internet is a wondrous thing and I wouldn't go back to a simpler life for anything.

 

[arabella]

I wouldn't go back to researching without computerized card/journal catalogs...I remember the card file box and encyclopedias. I'm glad I can do research without a computer if needed, but I'm still VERY thankful for online journal abstract databases.
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[buffyprops]

I remember being a child of nine years old and standing on my parents back forty staring at the rusty blade-wheel of an old plow thinking to myself..."There's gotta be a way to make that into a big chopping axe!"
This was a good 30 years before the internet arrived. I can't imagine going back to staring at that plow blade.
As my moniker below say's:

 

[white avenger]

No, I wouldn't willingly go back to a time without the internet. For that matter, I wouldn't even go back to a time without wireless connections and laptop computers. I love my comfort and convenience too well to be without them. The same thing can be said for cable TV, air conditioning in automobiles, or any of a thousand other things that we have today that are simply taken for granted. Take my word for it, not EVERYTHING was better back in the "good old days."

 

[Kean]

I wouldn't go back to researching without computerized card/journal catalogs...I remember the card file box and encyclopedias. I'm glad I can do research without a computer if needed, but I'm still VERY thankful for online journal abstract databases.
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THIS.

In terms of the social domination influence the internet has, I definitely hear what you are saying Sco. Technological hangover much?

But I have to say, when it comes to academia and just the basic availability of knowledge, I wouldn't give it up for the world.

 

[InsaneMystic]

Hell no, the internet is the greatest blessing for me... I'd be totally devoid of a social life without it. It would be absolutely horrible for me thinking of living even twenty years early. (Even though the music, of course, was loads and load better in the 80s. 😛)

Then again, my access to it it pretty filtered down as it is, so the "everything in the world at the touch of a button" doesn't apply to me anyway.

 

[arabella]

Kean, can you imagine writing a dissertation without an online database of journal abstracts!?! What a nightmare!


I get what Sco is saying otherwise though...total tech overload.
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[Kean]

Kean, can you imagine writing a dissertation without an online database of journal abstracts!?! What a nightmare!

It doesn't even bear thinking about. Where would you even begin? Not only that your sphere of information would be so restricted to what your particular college houses.

The internet is an academic must have.

 

[BuffyThoughts]

How old do you have to be to be old? I'm 60, there can't be many people on this board older than I am.

I spend my life on a computer. I can't imagine no internet. I can't live without GPS anymore (did anybody mention that?). No, keep the simple.

 

[Goby]

Well, I live on top of a mountain, in a log cabin, but I still have wireless internet. It's slow, but it works. And I don't have TV.

The answer is "No way!!" I remember encyclopedias, and having to buy a new set every year. Or going to the library, or reading newspapers. And only 3 channels of news. I love wikpedia, newspapers on the internet, and everything else that goes with it. I love my iPhone too.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

But what I meant was.. can you remember doing all the things you were doing before the internet.. specifically I am thinking of google/wikipedia. I can remember getting my old 8088 and having cassette tapes as the 'digital' media, I can remember using Prodigy but I cant remember for what. I honestly cannot remember life before google/wiki.

 

[zobothehobo]

I'm not old but I sit and look at my parents and wonder every day how they functioned without the internet. I honestly can't imagine not being able to have all of this information at my fingertips. I love having all these people and all their knowledge and insights at my fingertips. I love having all of this media and entertainment at my fingertips (and most of it free). I love being able to explore my creativity in a way the generations before me simply could not. I honestly don't know what I'd do without it and I don't know what you guys did.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Damn.. that is really bad, isn't it? I had forgotten I used encyclopedias. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

 

[arabella]

I remember life before google. There was no google when I was in high school, and it wasn't super popular when I started university. I definitely remember when I had to spend time in a library with the card catalog and the encyclopedia in order to write a research paper or report. I don't remember ever trying to write a University level paper without online journal abstracts. That said, I do remember a time before google and wikipedia when there were just things that I accepted that I didn't know or pulled out the encyclopedia to learn.

Gosh that all felt redundant. Sorry.
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[Goby]

As a lawyer, I can avoid buying thousands (yes... thousands!) of books, along with the space to keep them all.

As a musician, I recorded a song at home, with equipment that cost about $300, and is probably better than what the Beatles used.

As a cook I have access to thousands of recipes.

As a reader, I have thousands of books for my Nook that I take everywhere.

As a music lover, I can post a link so that everyone can check out an amazing new band (and please old people---stop saying that music was better way back when--- there are tons of great bands out there!)

There are a million wonderful things about living in the 21st Century. 🙂

 

[arabella]

It is convenient to live now. I think that there is something valuable about the way that we were taught to find information and organize thoughts to best execute a search that is lost by having google do it for us.

To me, its like long division. I hate doing it and a calculator is MUCH faster, but because I can do it I understand the process.
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[BuffyElevated]

I'm not that old, but I'm old enough to remember life before computers were a staple in every house. And even though I did love sitting at the table with my grandma and grandpa, sipping a cup of coffee while they both read newspapers instead of surfing the net for info, computers have offered us way too much to say I'd like to go back to life without them.
My dad has only just within the last 2 years started using computers. I bought him a computer after my husband enlisted in the Army, and told him "You can see pictures of the kids every day if you have a computer and can use your email!" For the longest we did use email, but after I forgot to log out of my Facebook account on his computer and he admitted he kept going on there under my name to look at everyone's pictures and stuff, I made him his own page and he's ADDICTED now. Facebook has helped his typing a LOT, and he's a lot more confident on how to handle it if something comes up with his computer. It's also made my dad less depressed because he can "talk" to people and interact more, even if he doesn't feel like leaving the house.

 

[zobothehobo]

I'm not that old, but I'm old enough to remember life before computers were a staple in every house. And even though I did love sitting at the table with my grandma and grandpa, sipping a cup of coffee while they both read newspapers instead of surfing the net for info, computers have offered us way too much to say I'd like to go back to life without them.
My dad has only just within the last 2 years started using computers. I bought him a computer after my husband enlisted in the Army, and told him "You can see pictures of the kids every day if you have a computer and can use your email!" For the longest we did use email, but after I forgot to log out of my Facebook account on his computer and he admitted he kept going on there under my name to look at everyone's pictures and stuff, I made him his own page and he's ADDICTED now. Facebook has helped his typing a LOT, and he's a lot more confident on how to handle it if something comes up with his computer. It's also made my dad less depressed because he can "talk" to people and interact more, even if he doesn't feel like leaving the house.

Facebook and Skype have been godsends to my grandfather. When he was in the hospital last year, they had to cut off both his legs right below the knee. he has prosthetics and uses them and has a special driving thing so he can drive... but it is difficult and rather painful a lot of times for him to leave the house. He LOVES being able to skype with us... especially my sister Maya who is in Paris for school. Facebook has really helped him to connect with his friends back in Greece and our family all over the world. It really helps him cope with not having legs anymore.

 

[mayfever]

I'm 25, not that old, but I distinctly remember a time before Google (but that might be to do with the fact that my parents tried their best to keep me away from what they deemed "damaging influences" for the best part of the first two thirds of my life) and sure, it wasn't all that bad, or difficult. Does anyone remember the info-technological revolution that was MS Encarta? 😀

I'm with Kean, researching literature for academic purposes has become infinitely easier, and I wouldn't change that for the world, That said, however, I'm kind of glad that I'm graduating this spring because if I have to listen to one more badly researched, Wikipedia-based presentation in class I WILL SCREAM, DO SOMETHING HORRIBLE and probably END UP BEHIND BARS (or at least with an injunction). The internet is all good and nice, but it definitely enables and encourages people's laziness.

Speaking of, I think I read about a study that the human long time memory is pathologically changing due to Google and the constant availability of knowledge - nobody has to remember anything anymore, because hey, I'll just google it! I'm totally guilty of that, and it's really painful to realise that I probably had a better general knowledge when I was in junior high than I do now.

PS: HA! Found it.Via google, of course 😀