Friday, April 14, 2006

Gen Net

Techonology is wonderful. Being a part of the first generation to grow up with the Internet means I have the world at my fingertips. Google, Amazon, IMDb, Retrosheet, Wikipedia, I can find any inforamtion I desire on any subject in just a few mouse clicks. It's an On Demand society.

Generation Net (my own definition of anyone born after 1980) can watch any television show they desire at any time thanks to TiVo. With cell phones we can be in contast contact. Blogs, such as this one, allows us to self publish our opinions. iTunes gives us any song for $.99. Stupid yet entertaining videos can be watched at YouTube. The list goes on and on.

Take away our technology and we feel naked. Spend a few days away from a computer and it is as if life is passing us by at 100 miles an hour. Frustration sets in if we can't use our cell phones because of a dead zone. What do you mean I have to use cash and not swipe my debit/credit card?

A downside to living in a foothill community is that often technology is slow to arrive. If visiting Sonora, don't even think about using a cell unless you have Cingular. Believe it or not only half of the county has access to DSL.

I live within the city limits of the county seat and I was offered high speed internet just this week! Being forced to use dial up led to many upset sessions of web surfing over the past two years. I could not browse certain websites at home because my connection would time out before the site would load.

As technology becomes more intregrated with our lives we become more demanding. Sometimes I wonder if I could ever live 200, 300, 400 years in the past. But then my phone will beep with an incoming text message and I will quickly move on to my next technological dependent task.

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