Reliable Internet · 1 February 2020
Visualization of Internet routing paths
(original size: 1024×1024)
by The Opte Project
Licensed under CC BY 2.5
I never really realized how important the internet has become to everyday life until I did not have it every day.
I find it amazing that we have become so reliant on the internet. We use it to pay bills, to apply for loans and scholarships, to track our investments. We use it to watch movies and keep up with our friends on social media. We even use it to settle silly disputes at the dinner table or to play fantasy football or chess. Sure, some of the things we use the internet for are frivolous or might seem silly, but we seem to use the internet all the time.
Which is why we need to have a reliable connection. All the time.
I am amazed that we have gotten to a point where we need the internet all the time. A point where we take the internet for granted. A point where we see the internet as almost a right given to us at birth. It is a strange shift because I remember not too long ago when the internet was a flight of fancy. When it was only for the few, the elite, the in-crowd who wanted in on the new phenomenon. In fact, it seems like just yesterday when we were listening to the 1200 baud modems connecting to the internet through our phone lines and leaving us without a means of communication. It was either internet or phone but not both. Then again, we were just checking email once a week and downloading games once in a blue moon. Nobody would have dreamed then that we would need to download gigabytes of data just to play games or watch movies. Nobody would have dreamed then that we would need to be connected to the internet all the time.
Everything is on the internet these days. Books, movies, shopping, even friends. Everything and everybody is connected. At least seemingly. There are surely places in the world where they have never seen a computer. (But they probably have a cell phone. Which is a computer, but an entirely different story.) But in the modern world and even in the not so modern world, we seem to need to be connected to the internet all the time.
Which brings me back to reliability.
Regardless of whether we think it is right or wrong, whether we think it a necessary evil or a blessing sent from heaven, or even whether we think it is for only the elite or for everybody, the internet is necessary. And it is here to stay. Which means we need to be reliably connected to it all the time.
I seem to have just rambled on and on and on without saying much, but I suppose that is what the internet is for. Musings and ramblings of mediocre men. Or even of men striving to be mediocre. Still, I know that for most of us living in this modern world of information and instant gratification, we need the internet all the time. I wonder when that happened. All I know for sure is that just like most things in life, I know that I need the internet most when I do not have it every day.
© 2020 Michael T. Miyoshi
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