The Internet Has Changed Lives Piece by Piece

October 25, 2005 ·  

My last post got me thinking about some other activities that the internet has changed. There are a bunch of BIG things that have been changed obviously, but what about little things.

For Instance:

-Learning lyrics to a song- I remember going and buying an album and then being so excited when they decided to print the lyrics in the CD booklet. If it wasn’t for that I would have never been able to sing along with Bone Thugs and Harmony or the John Michael Montgomery fast songs.

-Finding sports scores- When you were waiting to hear the final score from a game, you had two options. You could either wait up for the 11PM news or call a phone number and go thru a ridiculous amount of pushing buttons to get to the team that you wanted.

-Acquiring Movie Times- Nothing was worse then being 14 and wanting to go to a movie. You couldn’t drive to a convenience store to get a newspaper so you had to call the theatre and listen to ads before they started listing the movie and times. Careful not to miss your movies because you’d have to go thru them all again.

-Buying just one song from an album- I remember going to music stores in high school and looking for the “Singles” section so I could buy the one song that I wanted from an album. They rarely had the song. Instead of being let down, I would resort to taping it off the radio. I think half of my collection ended with the beat fading off then, “This is 98.5 KLUC…”. I was never fast enough to hit the stop button.

-Taking a poll of America- Shows like Hard Copy used to have you call in during the show to vote on a subject. It would usually cost a dollar to vote. Can you believe people used to pay a dollar to vote for stuff like this? Even more then that, the answers were usually Yes, No, or No opinion. Why would someone pay to call in and then have no opinion on the matter?

There are plenty of other things that have changed. Calling worldwide? Doing research on electronics before you buy them? Finding info on people, places or things. I dare you to not use a search engine for a whole week.

Any more changes you can think of?

Our Gem this week comes from Brett Dennen. I have been enjoying his album ALOT!! My favorite is Just Like The Moon but the whole album is really really good.(Brett Dennen iTunes Link)

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Comments

8 Responses to “The Internet Has Changed Lives Piece by Piece”

  1. Richard Miller on October 25th, 2005 3:10 pm

    These are all so true — it would be very hard to go back to life without the internet. I often wonder what certain words mean or I’ll have a curiosity about a certain topic, and I can immediately answer the question or learn more about the topic. I happen to think that the internet facilitates our best learning by allowing us to answer questions precisely when our brains are looking for the answer, and at our own pace.

  2. Doug on October 25th, 2005 4:32 pm

    Lol! I dare you not to use a search engine for a week. That is really funny mainly because it is so true. I don’t believe it is possible, but I might take you up on it someday – maybe during my week long camping trip. :-)

  3. Roachie on October 25th, 2005 8:15 pm

    I can’t remember what life was like without google. Sorry. Couldn’t give it up. Not even for a day.

  4. Brandon on October 25th, 2005 8:50 pm

    hmmm mapquest, just hope on the internet before u leave print directions and go…. no need to look at a big bulkey map of the city that has the smallest of streets, get a nice zoomed in view of there ur going with mapquest or other map engine………..also ebay, that changes everything. no need to go to flea markets or stores to get hard to find things. just look up on ebay and boom! most likely they will have it.

  5. brian on October 26th, 2005 5:19 am

    Mapquest is a great example!

  6. Sean on November 1st, 2005 10:44 am

    One little thing that has huge ramifications is the way I make purchases. Most items have online reviews by both critics and users. I just expect nowadays to be able to find out immense amounts of information about any purchase before I even walk into a store or really start shopping. I am in the process of purchasing new snowboard boots and noticed that since there aren’t many online expert or user reviews of snowboard boots, I find myself disliking the buying process a lot more than I did when I was deciding on a new cell phone(My last relatively large purchase). I’m finding it rather annoying to have to trust the opinions of in-store 18yo sales people

  7. Brian Stucki on November 1st, 2005 12:03 pm

    Sean, that is very true. Nothing bothers me more then hearing the runny nose kid at Best Buy telling a customer not to buy a product because of so and so. When people learn to do research on their own, they are way better off. (Those that don’t do the research deserve to be ripped off.=)

  8. Brian on November 17th, 2005 3:27 pm

    I thought of another one. Thanks to the internet, we don’t have to waste time on vacation shopping. You used to have to buy certain products in certain areas because that was the best place to get them. But now you can get just about anything, just about anywhere.

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