The Thief of Time ..... (Societal Impact of the Internet)

Member Name: sidneygee

Product:	Societal Impact of the Internet
Date:	28/10/01 (242 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, So much information, Many possibilities not yet fully exploited.

Disadvantages: Veryt Little

I first accessed the Internet in April 1996, little thinking the impact it would make on my life over the following 5 years or so. I had just taken early retirement (at the age of 50 !) from my secure local government job, with a full pension and a sack of redundancy money.

I had considered and turned down three job offers (from people/companies that I felt I could not work with/for) and had decided to embark on the precarious future of freelance Consultancy in my varied fields of work. I could see that the Computer, fax machine and mobile phone would continue to assist me in getting the job done much more effectively than I could have, say 5 years' previous.

Having a son, then almost 15 years old, certainly helped. He had 'helped' me specify the computer that I bought just before taking retirement – a Pentium 150 MHz with 64 Meg RAM, a 1.2 Gb hard-drive and a 33 kbs Modem. Total cost with a 17 inch monitor was about £2,600, but I knew that I had a whole heap of information that I wanted to get on the computer to assist my new business venture.

I connected to the Internet using the 'Cableinet' service from Telewest. If was disastrous – very slow and cut off regularly. Then the modem failed and was replaced under warranty, by a 56kbs system (a much better option).

The Cableinet connection then cost £10 a month (plus call charges), but this was ditched in favour of Freeserve as soon as it came out. I also registered for Freeserve Unlimited as soon as it was available and was one of the very first to enjoy this service (indeed, my refernce number ended with the number 00001, so maybe I was the 'first'?).

Well, perhaps "enjoy" was the wrong word – it caused a great deal of web-rage initially, but since then improved. Now the 'Freeserve Anytime' service that replaced 'Anytime' has continued to improve and crashes (almost) never. At £12.99 fo
r unlimited 24 hour access is really quite good... and I am loathe to change unless it is to Broadband.

Information
Initially my use of the Internet was for accessing Chemistry/ Environmental websites to get 'information', and then contacting friends and colleagues at the Universities, again to obtain information.

Still a major source of information for me, and all the family. Using a variety of search engines and a number of personal ploys, it surprises me constantly on how much is available and is 'out there' somewhere. A recent excellent example was in helping our son with his University design project, working on the generation of electricity from wave power. I knew that his professor had been ill-served by the UK government and the nuclear industry in the early 1980's but I couldn't remember all the detail. A Internet search soon threw up the whole story – on an Australian web-site. That was duly printed out and this (sometimes disliked) harridan of Edinburgh University soon earned a lot of 'respect' from his 3rd year students. An account of this will follow in an opinion on "Alternative Energy Sources".

Without the Internet access, my whole life would certainly be a whole lot smaller.

One thing which surprises me is how relatively little the Internet has been exploited by the Universities as a Teaching medium. OK, there are some 'distance learning' modules but, in my opinion, all lectures should be available on-line, for ease of assimilation, with a wealth of web access links.

The apparent reluctance of academics to do this demonstrates all the professional jealousies and the "It's MY information" attitude that I have detected in many of the academics I have come into contact with.

Indeed at one time, my motto was "I must ensure that I upset AT LEAST one academic a week". I usually succeeded in accomplishing th
at quota many times over (lol).

And what about the ease of researching family links ? My aunt and cousin went to Alderney on two occasions to carry our research into family roots, with only limited success. After one hour on the Internet, I was able to establish that my great-grandparents were actually born on Guernsey .... (so Aunty Hannah - of Plymouth Gin fame - was looking in the wrong place(drunken old bool ! lol - I loved her really)

So much information out there to be exploited.

It is a poor employment prospect who now goes for an interview without looking up the company on the web and extracting as much relevant information as possible, to form opinions and questions that can be communicated during the interview.

Communication
And soon as I gained clients with web-access, it was an excellent means of communication. Not only from me to them and from them to me, but also for me to get information from my resources back at my office when I was away.

In the early days of my Consultancy, it was a nuisance to carry down so much information, often in the written form, but as I fed in more and more information and acquired a lap-top, then travel became so much easier.

Armed with a fax machine from 1991, I always found that facility brilliant for enhancing my professionalism. Seems a strange claim that, doesn't it ?

Well – it is true. You see I was a real work-junkie, frequently taking work home with me. Using my trusty old 386 IBM supplied by my employer, I was able to transfer information between office and home. Arriving home at say 6 pm, after eating and dealing with family affairs until, say 11 pm - midnight, I would usually spend an hour or so writing/completing Reports. I had insisted on being supplied with fax machine by my professional association since I had agreed to become their Training Officer (an unpaid appointment). What I would often do is to put a completed
report into the Fax machine, then when I got up for a quick 'jimmy' during the night, I would press the transmit button. Surprising how many clients honestly believed that I had worked into the early hours to complete THEIR urgent report ... with the advantage of that little slip that was printed out of the machine to prove that it had been done. Usually I would also telephone the next day to enhance the effect (and 'play the martyr').

So obviously the power of email further enhanced this ability, with the recording of when a Report was sent - so much more honest than the snail-mail post

I also cannot allow commenting on "communication’" to pass without commenting on sites such as www.friendsreunited.co.uk. This has been brilliant, putting myself and Heather into contact with people we have not seen for, in some cases 40 years. Absolutely brilliant - but sometimes saddening, as you find out that some friends have suffered great tragedies in their lives or even are now no longer with us.

Oh and being able to allow relatives abroad to access websites which have features on our children is so much better than sending photocopies ....

Entertainment
Now I will admit to finding visual entertainment a bit dull. Thus I am not a great fan of TV or video. I am much more of a listener and a reader. Indeed, I cannot remember the last time that I sat down to 'only' watch a TV program.

I mostly watch TV in our 'living room' (that was designed to be a breakfast room). Thus we have the breakfast table and visible from Sid's seat is a 20" television with a video. The major advantage is that I can spread out a newspaper or a magazine, so that I can read at the same time as getting out as much information as I decide that I want from a TV program. Similarly when working at my computer, I have a radio on permanently - tuned to Radio 2/Radio 4/ Radio Scotland/Classi
c FM depending on mood/program/time of day.

Ask me a year ago, and I would have been a little pompous about using the Internet for entertainment, but hey, things have moved on since then. When examining the website for the Ken Burns TV Jazz series, I was amazed to discover 'Real Player' facilities, where samples of recordings can be played back. And the ability to download into one of them MP3 players – sounds like magic to me.

Employment
Well certainly the web provides loads of direct employment, and several of our childrens' friends, on graduating, have found employment within the industry. And it certainly has helped me obtain business in my main Consultancy activity. Normally, a Laboratory requires a full time Quality Manager on-site. However, I have managed to act as Quality Manager to a number of Laboratories in their early days of introducing documented quality systems into their management systems, by using the Internet.

The ability to record all written communications can give the audit trail to prove daily involvement necessary to satisfy the Accreditation body. This means that Laboratories can save money and utilise my expertise fully. At the Laboratory, one of the fulltime staff is designated as my Depute or as an 'Assistant Quality Manager', to carry out the required daily auditing and control. The only party generally 'unhappy' about the situation is the Accreditation Body, whose Assessors are 'not keen' on meeting me in a variety of Laboratories during Accreditation or Surveillance visits. This is because I can exploit their weaknesses and complain about any inconsistencies that I can always detect in their approach. They cannot stop my acting in this capacity with the various Laboratories since I can demonstrate, via the Internet records, my (almost) daily involvement in the Laboratory Quality Management systems.

When I gained my first over-seas project, na
turally the Internet became a real life-line. The telephone system was not always reliable and the time differences created difficulties. But being able to have large qualities of information sent from Edinburgh to Buenos Aires/Bangkok/Amsterdam made life and professional development so much easier. The occasional project now even turns up which have allowed me to carry them out without moving from my study, and I believe that future prospects with academic laboratories all over Europe would have been impossible without the Internet.

Commerce
My use of the Internet for buying things has increased dramatically over the past year. Now that credit cards such as 'Marbles' offer free protection against hackers fraudulently using your account, I am now at ease doing this and have bought clothes, CD's, mobile phone accessories, tools, car parts and software via the Internet.

I have also accessed prices on everything from screws to house-kits. We are in the process of getting a new kitchen specified, and it has enabled me to get information on suppliers and prices on so many items. We are having the kitchen supplied and fitted by John Lewis, and low web prices will enable us to negotiate savings of close on £1,000 from John Lewis quoted prices for the fridge freezer and range cooker alone (prices that John Lewis will match).


Earning Money & Advertising
Problem is sooo much is now free, that it can be difficult to earn any money directly from the Internet. The use of advertising banners as a means of generating income was, at first, just a diversion. But so many sites have been ruined by too many insidious and objectionable repeated advertisements that it must be losing its impact. Particularly since, in common with many others, I have installed two (free) anti-banner software packages to prevent these banners from coming into view. Problem is that this slows down all the activities.

And is it my imagi
nation, or are there fewer 'hits' on DooYoo since that Nokia ad 'appeared' ?

Making friends
Well, I have made at least 20 friends through the Internet, and have met three of them face-to-face. (Oh and I have also met one or two other DooYooers that I would not necessarily describe as "friends"). On each of these occasions, I felt I 'knew' these people before we met, so that allowed me to say one or three fairly outrageous comments, knowing what the reaction would be. In other words, I KNEW that they would not be upset by my comments. Finding friends this way will happen more and more in the future. In view of my fairly uncompromising commonest and opinions, it may surprise many of you to know that the 'best' of the friends that I have made through the medium of Dooyoo are those whose opinions are often diametrically opposite mine.

I know that some people find 'love' on the Internet. Having found my 'love' through the medium of a newspaper advertisement (se my marriage op), I can certainly see the potential in that !

Dangers
Oh yes, the Internet can be a dangerous place. So much deviant activity being spread by this medium, including despicable pornography. Enough said. Jusy hope that DooYoo.co.uk refrains from starting an 'erotica' category, because I fear that the 'rot' will set in.

It can be a cause of depression, and this is one reason I abhor the various chat-rooms, almost all of which I have come across need much more effective 'moderating'. I include much of the OpCom activity here, and those of you who have read my comments on OpCom opinions will know my views well.

One of the sites visited by our son, dealing with Vauxhall Novas, had some right foul-mouthed pr*cks on it. But since a sensible moderation has been actioned, it is quite a pleasant place to find out ALL you ever wanted to know about carrying out repai
rs on a Vauxhall Nova.

The Thief of Time
The greatest danger of the Internet though is that it becomes a thief of time. It is so easy with cheap, almost free access to spend hours and hours (and hours) surfing, chatting, reading this, reading that, commenting on this 'n that, dooing waht you feel you should be doing ....

Well OK, it may keep the brain active, but soon inertia builds up, and this stops you doing whatever it is that you should have been dooing. And whilst you are on the web, you are not in direct close contact with another human being. And that can be a dangerous thing. I would be getting very worried if any of our children started surfing instead of socialising .. it could become sooo easy as the logical option of life ....


The Future
How can I predict what the future will hold ?

Certainly I use the Internet more and more as months go by. When most users are on Broadband the further potential for development seems almost limitless. Web – conferencing will become really viable, and I can see me spending substantial parts of my day in direct visible contact with new clients within the next 18 months or so.

The quicker access promised by Broadband will need to be matched by developments of the servers used in Commerce. To match this more 'intelligent' search engines are essential. I use about 6 different search engines over the average week, and none quite manage to get exactly what I want first time. Takes perseverance, but I am very confident that it is only a matter of time before the perfect one comes along, tuned in exactly with Sidneygee's peccadilloes.

I have already expressed my hope with the greater embracing of the power of the Internet by academia, but this will require such a sea-change in the attitude endemic within academia, that I don't think that this will happen within MY lifetime.

I have concerns as regards entertainment
. Since our son is a semi-professional musician, earning money from live performances, I cannot help but ponder on how he could use the medium more effectively without being prejudiced.

Conclusions
Well overall, I can only see overall positive results for society from the Internet, with only a very few reservations.

I can see that there is a danger that some may become alienated from society, but surely this would happen anyway – Internet or no Internet ?

The Internet will continue to develop and will certainly play an increasing role in the future of society – a future in which I did feel that dooyoo.co.uk had its part to play.

I am not so certain about my feelings for the latter as I would have been a week or two ago ...

... REALLY gets you thinking this Internet thing, doesn't it ?


© Sidneygee 2001

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