Back in November 2012 I wrote a post asking what Mum’s did for advice before the internet, but during a conversation with my husband last week it has got me thinking how life in general has changed now we have the internet.
I will admit that my phone is with me at all times and if I have forgotten it I feel like I have lost part of me. I love being able to capture a special moment using the camera and then upload it to instagram and I will admit to getting frustrated if there is no WiFi or 3G signal. I have also been known to find a product I like in a shop and then look for it online from my phone to see if I can find it cheaper elsewhere.
Even my Gas and Electric meters are connected by the internet now. They automatically send my meter readings to British Gas, suggest the correct tariff I should be on and give me energy saving tips. Now you can even control your heating remotely too – perfect if you have been out all day or on holiday.
My house is less cluttered thanks to not having to store hundreds (I’m not exaggerating) of CDs. Now they are all on iTunes and I don’t even need a huge HiFi in the corner of the room anymore, just a speaker! If I miss my favourite program on the TV I can watch it again on iPlayer – no more attempting to set a video recorder in advance and trying to remember to turn the TV onto the right channel and even computers have shrunk in size!
Probably the biggest benefit of the internet to me is online shopping. I detest shopping with young children, unless you are buying something for them it normally ends in disaster with clothes pulled off the rails and onto the floor or a tantrum in the middle of the supermarket because you won’t buy them a toy. The introduction of online shopping has been a godsend and I buy food, clothes, toys and gifts online with the added bonus of being able to compare prices without traipsing around the shops to find the best deal.
We were fairly early adopters of the internet at home. I remember getting NTL installed and having a keyboard that enabled us to surf the internet on the TV. When I look back it seems so old fashioned and I can still remember the dial up tone that you could here when it was trying to connect and the frustration of people who were trying to phone us at home and the line was constantly engaged.
Fast forward a decade and we now have broadband which seems to get faster and more reliable every year. It has enabled more people to work from home and has introduced me to the wonderful world of social networking and blogging where I have made some firm friends and have had some amazing opportunities come my way.
Even the way we parent and school our children has changed. Abbey is now 20 and we had none of this technology available to us when she was little. Homework was done in books and projects done in folders – now all the information can be found online and not in the hundreds of Britannica encyclopedias that used to adorn the Library. Homework is submitted online and projects are done on Powerpoint. Some schools even have iPads!
In some ways it is good, however I think it is very easy for the child to open a second tab and get distracted by games etc and trying to teach children about how to behave online is tough – especially when its new world for us parents too. My teens have a far greater understanding about the workings of a computer and the internet than I do because it just wasn’t around when I was at school. The extent of my computer knowledge was writing a computer program on a BBCB computer during my GCSE’s!
How has the internet changed your life?