I go to an atm maybe 3 times a year now. Im guessing that wasnt the case before the internet. How exactly did you pay off credit cards before the internet?
Yes you didnt know better before. Now you know better now.
What exactly is a spontaneous holidays? In the past most overseas holidays were basically spoon fed to you like you were a little kid by travel agencies. Now you have complete freedom thanks to the net. Sure you could wander around aimlessly and check in to motels you came across each night. Fun for a little while but it would get pretty monotous and you would miss out on a lot of great places and experiences.
Try airbnb. Saves you a fortune compared to hotels and there are some really unique places to stay. Camping is awesome but i wouldnt of found so many great camping places without the net.
My sex life became far better with the net. The options literally fall into your lap.
Libraries are fun as a kid. They are hell as a student or a white collar worker.
How exactly does the internet stop you playing social sport. Sure didnt stop me. I think you will find age and life circumstances probably stopped you. And this is the reason why i think most people choose the toilet over the net. The net wasnt around when you were younger and we remember the past more favourably than it actually was. And we often subconsciously attibute all new things to being partly the cause of things that are less favourable now compared to the past regardless of whether they are. I hear some people with a straight face complain that the net, a medium for communication, has actually reduced communication.
Yes emails enable people much more time so managers give us extra work to do. This is the essence of productivity. We can do more.
Fair enough on the last point. But a lot of people do get to work from home and its game changing in terms of work life balance. Especially when you have kids. Im not sure if i could cope going back to the rat races and doing 40-50 hours a week in an office week after week.
1. I didn't have a credit card before the internet.
2. I wasn't talking about the holiday itself being spontaneous, I was talking about activities within the holiday which was your point I was addressing.
3. I found heaps of great camping places using the Camps 6 book (which is now up to Camps 9) and word of mouth. I don't stay in hotels enough for it or airbnb to make a difference to my life.
4. I'll take your word on your sex life.
5. I never used the library to study or work, pleasure only.
6. The internet doesn't stop you from playing sport, you said that the internet was great for finding new music and tv shows to watch, I said that prior to the internet I had plenty of other things that kept me busy, I didn't need it. Even now I barely watch tv shows outside of news and sport.
7. I work part time, 2 weeks on, 4 weeks off, since I went back to part time, when I was getting back to work after my breaks, I'd have around 800 emails, 100% work related and 98% irrelevant to me, yet I was devoting a significant amount of time to sifting through them, complete waste of time. I have access to it on my phone, so I'm in the habit now, of when I'm on break and the family are in bed, I'll will do a daily clean out. When I get back to work, there's probably 10 to 15 that actually need my attention.
Managers, in my experience, with access to the internet, data bases and email now largely lump people with a lot of work that isn't important. KPIs are set on useless data that someone else has pulled to fulfill their own KPIs and filtered it down and everyone panics about it. I see it every single day that I'm at work.
They built the London sewers because people were dying drinking water. There's an episode on The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, titled The Sewer King, check it out if you have never seen it.
Flushing toilets, septic systems, sewerage systems, yep, they're for me. No cholera or typhoid for me thanks.
All the things you mention are nice, but none of them are potentially going to be the difference between life and death or have increased my life expectancy.
