adminThe Internet definitely has changed things for the better. The end of the insurance ring-round, for example, or the elimination of the wait to know the latest sport results are unequivocally positive changes which we are all benefiting from.
Many of the changes brought about by the Internet are so gradual and pervasive that they can escape our attention. It makes sense for those of use who use the web every day to take stock occasionally, and think about the way it is leading us. Let us take stock of some of these changes . . .
The least obvious one, which is really, a very obvious thing is we are our own doctors. Our mothers used to rush us to the doctor or clinic whenever any of us had a rash or a cough. There were also home remedies passed down through generations which we all used: Remember guava leaves for a cough. Now she (and we because we are all moms and dads now), goes online for health information. Slightly scarier: 50 percent of doctors do the same.
We all multi-task more. Multitasking existed long before the Internet, of course, but the ubiquity of smartphones — and tabs! infinite tabs! — has made multitasking both easier and more damaging.
“The technology is rewiring our brains,” one brain scientist told The New York Times. And part of multitasking is being more socially vocal. Welcome to the death of polite disagreement, a trend that will be familiar to anyone who has spent time on internet message boards.
Civilised society depends on rival groups biting their tongues and agreeing to rub along together, but in online debates people are often unable to accept sincerely held differences of opinion and accuse their opponents of having an agenda.
This allows us all to think, it creates a headache for the public relations managers in companies though as online reputation management is a dynamic and unpredictable discipline.
Then there is no such thing as “dead time.” In the combi, in line at the bank and even in the shower — mobile Internet has crowded out the time we used to spend doing, well, nothing.
Per a Google study in 2011, nearly 40 percent of smartphone owners use their phone in the bathroom.
In Zimbabwe they keep their phone in the bathroom during their showers… for reasons that are best known to those individuals.
A similar percentage report using their cellphone when they are “bored” Enter the generation that does not know the meaning of “bored”.
Children can be entertained using the internet. On the negative though targeting the same audience: memory and concentration especially for the younger generation are not a pre requisite to doing well in school any more.
Google and Wikipedia have made almost any fact accessible within seconds, creating a culture where the retention of knowledge is no longer prized.
As our memories become less important so our attention spans decline – what with tabbing between Gmail, Twitter, Facebook and Google News, it’s a wonder anyone has to write any exams.
On the entertainment scene: Seriously, how did it take so long for the music industry to embrace the Internet?
Back in 1999, when everyone was fighting over Napster, couldn’t they see the inherent benefit of allowing people to listen to whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted?
People pay money for that! Now there are almost too many music-streaming services, as the industry has finally gotten onto the bandwagon.And we have easy access to the biggest library of music that anyone has ever had in history. Pretty cool stuff. And with ZOL Fibroniks, access to this library is at the click of a button with no buffering.
And the online money debate: we highly doubt that printed money will ever go away for good, but it’s easy to picture a time when very few people will use it.
Not only do you have payments systems, like those from Ecocash, VISA, Mastercard and PayPal, which make it that much easier to pay electronically, but you have new currencies, like Bitcoin, which have no physical presence at all.
No one needs phone books. Remember those clunky yellow things that used to come to your door for free? Are they still being printed?
“Anybody who doesn’t have access to some kind of online way to look things up now is probably too old to be able to read the print in the white pages anyway,” one commentator said when the phase-out started.
And the collateral damage of phone books is travel agents.
One of the best things that the Internet has done, is make booking travel so much easier simply by cutting out the middle man.
It’s hard to even imagine a world where you had to go and talk to someone who would then book your travel for you.
We still do it in Zimbabwe but it is not absolutely necessary. Encompassing airlines, hotel chains, and online travel agencies, online travel is now a multi-trillion dollar industry.
The internet has changed the way people live their lives; everything from talking to friends, to shopping, to checking a bank account have all become something one can do on the web.
Applying for a job is one of the things that has become electronic. Most companies now have online applications, and several only use the web, rather than keeping printed copies on location.
Applying online can be beneficial to the applicant, allowing them the ease of typing rather than handwriting, providing guidelines such as pull-down tabs so they know exactly what the company is looking for, and giving them options like which branches they wish to apply at.
Given all this we need to embrace the internet, iron out its flaws and never dismiss it.
It’s too valuable a resource. ZOL On! Online at www.zol.co.zw <http://www.zol.co.zw> to get onto ZOL Fibroniks and experience this valuable resource as it really should be experienced, easy and an absolute pleasure. Tune in tonight at 630 pm on Star FM and tell us how the Internet has changed your life on ZOLTech Radio.
You deserve to live like this.
Online Reporter