Days That Changed the World - WWW

30^th April 1993, a very significant date that I was unaware of until I looked it up. CERN, which is the French acronym for the European Council for Nuclear Research, put the World Wide Web software in the public domain. Since then, we’ve all been just a click away from more or less everything.  A day that changed the world.

As the level of technology progressed, the equipment for its use gradually became smaller in size. Computers nearly 60 centimetres deep and needing a massive processor, both filling a purpose built desk and taking up lots of office space – or half a room in our house – has reduced to the average smart phone. We have the whole world in our hands.

I love books and our house is full of them, but I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for a shelf full of pristine volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica when I’m ‘Googling’ things. The information I want is right there, with links to connected interests. I can’t imagine being without the internet, or my mobile phone, not now.

I wasn’t going to bother having a mobile phone. I didn’t need one for myself. My husband got one and we’d share it while we were away. We could let family know we had arrived safely after an epic drive to Pembrokeshire and we were settling in nicely. That phone turned out to be a God-send, keeping us in touch with family when my mother-in-law, also away on holiday, had taken ill and was in hospital. It was just a phone, what else would you want? Soon, the sky was the limit.

I did get my own phone, a basic phone, oh, I think text messaging was possible, too. I wouldn’t leave home without it. The next best thing was a camera on the phone. Digital, of course. Easy to download snaps of a day out on to the PC or laptop – yes, I’d got one of those by now. It wasn’t long before I’d agreed to a mobile contract with an all singing, all dancing phone, with camera, internet data, bells and whistles. Me, who didn’t want all this ‘crazy stuff’, to start with, now had up to date modern technology in my handbag, at my fingertips.

I missed it when it wasn’t there, though it was good to ‘click off’ for a while. There was no internet and no phone signal where we regularly stay in Scotland – until recently. We would stop the car at the top of the lane, last chance for a signal, before going down to the lodge. There would be no more contact until an early morning dog walk back up the hill to check for messages. It was good to relax, no interruption. It is different now. WiFi arrived. The lodges have upgraded to smart televisions and internet routers. We’ve all moved with the times.

I send emails to the USA with immediate arrival when previously a snail-mail letter would take days.

It is all good until there’s the dreaded system failure. When this happened at work, those of us who remembered how we did it before technology sharpened our pencils and our wits and got on with it. Not easy in a fully computerised dental practice. Fortunately the occurrence was rare and promptly rectified.

World Wide Web changed the world, brought it closer, and changed the way we do things. It is the way we are.

I found this poem by Dr Wayne Visser,

Change the World

Let’s change the world, let’s shift it
Let’s shake and remake it
Let’s rearrange the pieces
The patterns in the maze
The reason for our days
In ways that make it better
In shades that make it brighter
That make the burden lighter
Because it’s shared, because we dared
To dream and then to sweat it
To make our mark and not regret it
Let’s plant a seed and humbly say:
I changed the world today!

Let’s change the world, let’s lift it
Let’s take it and awake it
Let’s challenge every leader
The citadels of power
The prisoners in the tower
The hour of need’s upon us
It’s time to raise our voices
To stand up for our choices
Because it’s right, because we fight
For all that’s just and fair
For a planet we can share
Let’s join the cause and boldly say:
We’ll change the world today!

Let’s change the world, let’s love it
Let’s hold it and unfold it
Let’s redesign the future
The fate of earth and sky
The existential why
Let’s fly to where there’s hope
To where the world is greener
Where air and water’s cleaner
Because it’s smart to make a start
To fix what we have broken
Our children’s wish unspoken
Let’s be the ones who rise and say:
We changed the world today!

Wayne Visser © 2018

 Thanks for reading, Pam x

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The Eighth Deadly Sin - Social Media

The World Wide Web. Love it or hate it, use it or ignore it. We are surrounded by an invisible network capable of linking people with others all over the world within a second, or less. Send an email and it arrives at its destination, regardless of distance, at the same time that the final full-stop is typed and we hit ‘send’. No more neat hand-writing on thin, air mail stationery then having the letter weighed at the Post Office. The what office?  It’s getting like that but there are still a few around, for now. Use your webcam to ‘skype’ your cousin somewhere in Australia and have a conversation like you’re both in the same room, well, with the wonder of the internet, technically speaking, you are. When I was a child, I was fascinated by the wristwatches on the Thunderbirds characters. Press a button and there’s Virgil on the tiny screen chatting to  Scott, or Alan. I was seriously impressed.  Better than a Man from U.N.C.L.E. invisible ink fountain pen. The concept of those wristwatches exists now. It’s not Virgil though, it’s your own family and friends called ‘contacts’.  The eighth deadly sin, for me, Social Media, takes on many forms.

Check search engines like Google or Yahoo and everything you ever wanted to know, and even more that you didn’t want to know, is there. All the things once remembered, now forgotten can be found again. When I was at school, we had things to learn and remember in all our lessons; maths formulae, history dates, poetry to recite off by heart and more. By the time my eldest was working towards his GCSEs, he was very sure that none of us needed to remember anything because all the information was just a click away. I’d dispute his theory, along the lines of ‘what keeps your brain alive if you don’t feed it with knowledge?’ His peers were all the same and I used to despair for ‘the lost generation’, or maybe they are right.

My personal use of Facebook has increased over the years. It is a wonderful tool for collecting people together for events, keeping in touch with friends and sharing a bit of interesting knowledge I’ve stumbled across on Google. But it has its down side. There’s something I don’t want to see. Something I’d rather not know. Something I can’t unread.  And, that cryptic comment from a friend of a friend which disturbs and worries me and I can’t respond because I don’t want to show I’m bothered. Click bait. Yet I can’t leave Facebook completely alone. It is a minimised window on my lap top, so I can pop in and out while I’m busy with something else. It is the first thing I look at when I check my phone on my break at work. It’s sad. It’s a sin. Thank goodness I don’t ‘Tweet’.

Soon I’ll be enjoying a break in Dumfries & Galloway at the hidden away lodges where we often stay. No WiFi at all and no phone signal apart from a small area at the end of a long lane and I won’t be wandering along there on a cold, dark night. I will have peace and oblivion and the patience to wait until I can access the latest photos of my grandchildren, so cute with a Snapchat filter.

Social Media is here to stay. It’s a massive part of the electronic, technology-based lives we have, so I’ll continue to embrace it for what it is and carry on with the same level of discipline I have towards the other seven deadly sins.

My chosen poem is one of mine, a modern nursery rhyme.

Tom the Fool

Dashed home from school

To meet his mates on Facebook.

Oh what a frown

‘Cos the ‘net was down,

He didn’t dare to reboot. 

He hissed and swore

Like never before

And threatened to murder broadband,

Then found the hitch

Was a turned off switch
He should have checked beforehand.

 

PMW 2010

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x 

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