30th 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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