Bear with me as I add this up…
Internet meltdown at Fry’s
+ Dalton’s print media article
+ Greg’s article about books
+ An Onion video parody
= We muggles (in honor of midnight’s Harry Potter release) are overly dependent on the Internet!
So first, I must note that while at Fry’s Electronics yesterday, we waited in a line that dwarfed the lines on December 24th. The holdup? The Internet was down and they couldn’t process any payments. Seriously. Of course even checks have to be scanned and Lord knows no one in a tech store has cash! So, we waited for nearly 45 minutes.
While in line, we started talking to the guy behind us about what the hell we would do in our own lives if we didn’t have the Internet…
What if your PDA/Treo/iPhone/Blackberry wouldn’t turn on in the morning? Do you know anyone’s numbers? I don’t even know my mom’s number!!! Would you know what appointments you were supposed to make that day?
How would you use the MLS? How would you know inventory? How would you effectively get your news? There is no “real estate channel.” How would you suddenly market to an audience used to clicking on Google an average 127.2 times a day?
What happens if you don’t know the definition of a word? How could you possibly explain to your children that before dictionary.com they actually published a print format containing definitions and they’ll have to dust off the book printed by dinosaurs and quit asking me what “vociferous” means.
Would you be able to live without texting? I know my kids would scratch their eyes out if they didn’t have their cell phones, MySpace, Facebook or email. Would you be able to go without a blog? Who would know about your thoughts, beliefs, rants or LOL Cats?
What if The Internet crashed? Who would restore The Internet? Is there a Ctrl + Alt + Delete (or a paper clip to the reset button if you’re a MacHipster) for The Internet?
This was the conversation at Fry’s yesterday, then today we stumbled upon the Onion Video parody of news coverage of The Crash (which theoretically I wouldn’t receive since I have digital cable)!
Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash
Dalton and Swann catalogue the death of print media and books (that I agree with). We have already traded print for an Internet platform. It leaves me to wonder WWWD? That’s “What Would We Do” for y’all slow folks. Is it even possible for The Internet to flake on us? Even if only for a few moments, my world would be completely upside down.
I have an English degree, but books are for chumps (or for people who have the attention span longer than a toddler… which I don’t… wait, what was I saying?). WWWD? We’d probably have a simultaneous, major hissy fit.
Cathleen Collins says:
Hi Lani,
During the “Dress for Success” decade (the ’80s for those of you too young to remember), I remember having to turn around and go back home if I got to the office without my Daytimer. I don’t think we’ve come overly dependent on electrons, so much as we have come to need tools to make our lives more efficient as demands on our busy lives spiral higher and higher.
July 20, 2007 — 11:28 pm
Lani Anglin says:
I agree Cathleen (and I have to ask if you wore white tennis shoes with shoulder pad suits?) 🙂
What is most interesting to me is not “what if we never had the Internet” but “what if tomorrow it crashed, WWWD?” I suspsect we’d have some international rage issues…
July 21, 2007 — 8:45 am
Cathleen Collins says:
You’re probably right about the rage, but then an angry person is always looking for his next excuse.
And yeah, the tennis shoes and shoulder pads were part of my wardrobe, but only if the jacket didn’t have removable pads… My shoulders are broad for a woman, so the pads made me look like I could play football. (Note — I couldn’t make that sentence more flippant by naming the position I would play, because I don’t know what those positions do. So, clearly, I can’t play football.)
July 21, 2007 — 11:44 am
B.R. says:
haha that video is hillarious! cntl alt delete myself!
July 21, 2007 — 10:13 pm
Will Farnsworth says:
I can has internets?
July 22, 2007 — 5:32 am
Kevin Boer says:
This would be nothing short of a major disaster for my business. I wouldn’t even be able to write up a contract if the Internet were down!
July 22, 2007 — 11:52 am
Poppy Dinsey says:
I read an article last week about how poor our memories are these days thanks to our reliance on all our little gizmos. When I moved 6 months ago I had to get a new phone number and I am ashamed to say that I still don’t know it! I’m so used to having all the info I would ever need stored electronically that my brain gets that I seem to have given my brain the day off. It is pretty embarrassing when you’re caught on the spot sans electronic devices and you find yourself making up an excuse for not knowing your own telephone number. I remember an advert in our local paper from a guy who had left his laptop on the train and it just said ‘If anyone has my laptop then please contact me. I will pay more than it’s street value for its safe return…PLEASE MY LIFE IS ON IT’. And in this day and age, he’s probably not exaggerating.
July 23, 2007 — 6:13 am
Tom says:
Cathleen
As a guy who is still a child of the 80’s, I never understood shoulder pads. And what was worse, when I saw them on a girls dresser the first time I thought that life was a complete fraud. Once she explained that they were to be used as shoulder pads as opposed to my first inclination, I was greatly relieved… 🙂
July 23, 2007 — 3:58 pm