Life without Internet

In the minds of the current generation, it is hard to imagine life without Internet. My 7 and a half-year old grandson Ryan and 6-year old granddaughter Sara can access free video games through the Internet and watch movies on DVD’s when I drive them home from the caregiver. Students can carry out research on topics they are learning in schools and Universities. Professionals requiring up-to-date information on technical and business matters generally sign in to the Internet via lap top or desk top computers and can access information that is current even in terms of hours.
Life was quite different in the “olden days” (as my grandchildren call the time when my generation was their age). When I was 7 years old (just after World War II in rural Hungary) we saw a few cars, trucks were more frequent, and we travelled mainly on trains and buses when we had to go to the big city. Otherwise, we walked for hours, rode on horse drawn carriages, and the more affluent people got to places on bicycles. We listened to the commentary of soccer games at one of three radios that was available in the village of 800 people. The word television was unknown to us but we could watch a movie in the community centre on Saturday nights.
During University years (1960’s) we did our research by going to libraries and looking up books and publications. Our essays contained information that was often 2 to 3 years old, especially when we quoted authors in published journals. We submitted these essays in hand-written form on hard-copy paper. A few students were able to use a typewriter which at times earned them a few extra points through the marking system.
During the early part of our professional careers (1970’s and 1980’s) we conducted our research work by reading books (which were published a few or more years earlier) and scientific journals. In order to project an image that our knowledge of the technology was “up-to-date” we generally quoted fellow scientists by stating that the information was obtained through “personal communications”.
We witnessed some major breakthroughs in the 1970’s with the word processing phenomenon. We threw away the carbon paper and connected the
electric typewriters to magnetic tape machines so that we could make changes in the documents and re-print them. This made a major impact on the typing pool in large offices, often resulting in re-assignment of secretaries to other duties. The next phase in the modernization of office practices involved word processing technology with spell checking capabilities.
The most exciting development occurred in 1991 when World Wide Web was introduced by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailau. In 1993 the first proper web-browser (Mosaic) gave a jump start to the Internet. Services were then set up for domain registration and sites began turning up on the web, running on basic HTML. Web had over 600% annual growth rate as important sites such as the White House and Pizza Hut appeared, followed by on-line shopping sites. In the mid 1990, Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) such as AOL and CompuServe began offering Internet access to the masses.
Internet is now an integral part of our everyday lives. Many of us are not satisfied by accessing the Internet via desk-top and lap-top computers, we feel the need to be connected even when we are away from office or home. BlackBerry and iPad are impacting our lives by providing wireless Internet access from almost anywhere so we can respond to important e-mails right away, as well as can track our travels with GPS and on-line digital maps.
I often think: how did we manage in the olden days without Internet?