Thursday, February 26, 2009

Simpler or Too Fast?

So I got this new little toy for my computer… A wireless USB connection card that allows me to be online wherever I want (provided there’s a cell phone signal in the area). After spending the last 10 years dialing up whenever I wanted to be online at home or having to stop at public libraries while driving cross country to check my email, this is a radical change for me. I’ve resisted upgrading for years in order to save money ($20 for a phone line sure beats whatever the going rate for DSL and wireless networks are—over that 10 year period, I’ve easily saved thousands of dollars) but now it’s time to enter the 21st century. I’m a little saddened that I will lose that time that I would spend waiting for websites to load that I would usually get up and move around the apartment, multi-tasking as I waited. Will I fill that time that I don’t need to wait anymore with something productive? Or will I just waste more time online looking for things I don’t really need or want? Will the fact that I got impatient that it took 5 minutes for a page to load before be supplanted by getting upset if a page doesn’t now load in 30 seconds? Will this new technology really make my life simpler or make it go too fast?

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