The Perils of Connectivity
I just came to the horrible realization that I am lost without the Internet. Let me explain.
It’s a packed weekend. My birthday on Sunday, I’m traveling to New York City and I have a project that’s due for a class tomorrow night. I haven’t been able to start this project yet because I need a specific software program. I ordered it early this week and had it shipped 2-day air through UPS, but apparently that means if you haven’t received your package by the third day you are SOL.
I waited patiently this morning for the brown UPS truck to arrive, but it never did. So I scoured the Internet and found a trial version that I could download for a price, of course. Knowing that I would be riding a Metro-North train into NYC for two hours, I decided to buy the trial.
I downloaded the program at home but now I am on the train trying to open said program and it is giving me an error message! Arggghhh!!! I am writing this post in a Word document to post later to the blog, so that means I have no Wi-Fi connection, and no way of going back to the website where I downloaded the program to attempt it again. Suddenly, I feel powerless.
I have to meet a Sunday, midnight deadline and things are not boding well for this project. That is making me uneasy, but the thought that is making me most uncomfortable right now is that I can’t function without connectivity. Have I become so reliant on the Internet that I can’t be without it?
I take the bulk of my Masters courses online. I have already gone on two vacations this summer while I was in class and it was necessary for me to have my laptop and an Internet connection. As an undergrad, I remember taking an instructional course during my freshman year that taught us how to conduct an “Internet search.” Nowadays, you don’t even have to say the term “Internet search” to someone, you just say “Google it.”
My grandmother doesn’t have a computer, she doesn’t have an email address and she is certainly not on Facebook. So how has it become that her children and grandchildren now cannot get through a day without connectivity? My mother did not even have a cell phone until five years ago, now she texts me pictures from their vacations. My father listens to Internet radio and live streams of drag races from all over the country. Recently I took the two of them out to dinner. When we returned home, they both scattered as soon as we walked in the door. My mother was off texting her friend, while my dad retreated to the office and immediately logged onto the Internet to find out the latest NHRA standings. I was left alone in their kitchen, wondering to myself: “if I left and didn’t say goodbye, would they even notice?”
I used to think that the obsessive need for a wireless connection was annoying. A few years ago, I would have scoffed at people facing my same situation. Oh, how the tables have turned. Now I’m the one lamenting the fact that technology is not moving fast enough. In a few years, Wi-Fi connections will be everywhere, even on this crappy Metro-North train. Decades from now, information technology will invade our lives to the point of singularity. I won’t get into the specifics but read Time’s article on Ray Kurzweil’s theory and you’ll start feeling like Charlton Heston at the end of “Planet of the Apes.”
As horrified as I may be about my imperative need for connectivity, a deadline is still a deadline. So that’s why when we step off the train at Grand Central, I’m going to run to the nearest Internet café or Wi-Fi hotspot to figure out what went wrong with my download.
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