Powers of the Internet

It's surprising, how much we rely on the internet these days. I look back at when I was 15 and my dad bought me my first Sony digital camera. It was pretty small for those days, but still a brick compared to what they are now. Although my choice of cameras has got even larger since then!
Then came my first mobile phone. Some of my friends could "SMS" each other but that option didn't seem to work on mine... no great loss.... THEN!

Then came a day when my friend Kirsty and I strolled past a random shop, just full of computers and a cafe. Wondering what it was, we went in and were sat in front of a computer. "So what do we do now?" we asked. We were shown IRC and chatted to random people around the world about nothing. A/S/L?
That's what I thought the internet was. A way of talking to random people. It was enough for me when I discovered my Amiga 500+ could speak what I typed!

I persuaded my dad to get me a computer so I could use the "Internet" to talk to people. It was a fun way of passing time, being an only child and liking fiddling with computery things. Here, I discovered Worlds Away. A virtual world where you could create a virtual person, a flat and buy things using computer money! The "Internet" was fun! :)

So, let's fast forward 17 years to now...  (Has it really been 17 years!!!....)
Everywhere you look, someone is on their mobile phone. Their mobile phone which is no longer just a phone, but a tool to communicate by text, pictures, look at the internet, watch TV, play games and used as a camera.

I have cousins in Japan who I only ever used to be able to talk to when I went out there, as to write a letter in Japanese would take me forever. Now that they have recently found Facebook, I can talk to them, they can see what i'm upto and I can look at their photos... How things have changed...

I look at what I have been doing for the past few hours... editing photos on some software on my laptop to make them look better, photos that I took less than 24 hours ago. Uploading them to Facebook and Flickr and to my blog. Already over 450 people, who I don't even know have viewed them. I have found links to my blog on other websites and photos of myself.... How strange the internet is...

I wonder what will be written in another 17 years, when someone is ridiculing the fact that we can only text, watch TV and use the internet on our phones... The question may be "What was the internet?"

Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road (Stewart Brand)