Internet with a purpose

I currently live in a house where the internet is sporadic at best. It is hard to adjust from 4 years of college life where the internet is never off, to a house where the availability of the internet is a few random hours per day. There is nothing like limiting access to something to expose its role in one's life.

(0) If the internet were completely unavailable, life would involve US post, cheaper stamps, newspapers, and more phone conversations.

(1) If the internet was not available in the house, but available in public locations, then life would involve going to the library or elsewhere and checking email, downloading everything, and reading it at home. Websurfing would be similar-- download everything, read later. It was not until 4 years ago that I switched to web-based email. Before that, I had "download-and-read" email, a remnant from the dial-up days. Emails would be written and queued in an "Outbox". Now, that is called "Drafts" in GMail.

(2) With internet available 24/7, I have access to all the knowledge, information, and middle-man services of the internet. At a whim, I can easily look up directions, order books, read the news, and converse with friends. The internet middle-man offers 2+gb to store email and a easy way to search it. It facilitates living in the moment. It caters to my every thought, from "I need a DeGaulle speech from WWII" to "yawn" to "I wonder what is the chemical composition to acrylic paint?" What this instant access and instant service does *not* provide is the will to concentrate on a specific task.
This also means a lot of information is left on the internet instead of made accessible elsewhere. For example, GMail has a convenient "view attachments as html" function. Often, I would just view the word document as html, and only download it if I need to edit it. It is easier to search for the document on GMail than on my computer. Why use a map when online directions are readily available?

My current state alternates between state 2 and state 0. For a few hours a day, I live a normal internet-dependent life of instant gratification. For the rest of the day, I theoretically work on non-internet-dependent tasks. Tasks that require forethought, concentration, and physical action. What I have been discovering, however, is that transitioning between these two modes also takes time. Often, I would sit dazed after the internet is "turned off", just letting my mind wander around the room, at a loss for what to do. I might read comics, or re-tread old stories or files. Or eat a snack. It can be 5 minutes later or 50 minutes later that I can say "all right, I need to do something. I have goals to be accomplished." This is a dangerous transition time. This transition can be eased if I am consciously preparing to leave the internet. If I am saying "okay, after I finish these tasks, I will complete these other tasks in real life."

From this, maybe I can extrapolate that there are two principle ways of engaging with the internet: purposeful, and wandering. Purposeful is applicable to real life, such as checking email, checking maps, etc. But very often we wander. Wikipedia, fark, livejournal, myspace, webcomics, etc. Insular. I'm not saying that one is better than the other, only that we need to be conscious of what we're doing. I need to practice, and then teach my kids, the ability to use the internet with a purpose in mind, (but without losing the free-association aspect of the internet that allows me to expand my horizons.) Meta-cognition, anyone?

Internet -- the universal middle man

I finally had a spare afternoon this weekend, and I decided to finally sit down and put up a proper website for myself. This is the 6th incarnation of a general portal website for myself. Since I design one on average of once a year, my previous designs have become an interesting documentation of the changes in the way we interface and use the internet.

I'd like to posit that the internet has become the ultimate middle man to the world.

The "middle man" concept: The middle man is generally seen in a negative light-- as a consumer, you want to "cut out the middle man" so that you can deal directly with the producer of goods. For example, when I drive to the grocery store to get apples, I am paying middle men all along the way --
- the grocery store, the retailer
- the distributer who has a contract with the grocery store and the farmer (the wholesaler)
- the truckers who deliver transport the apples
Not to mention the farmer and my car.

Now, with the internet, I can theoretically connect "directly" with the original seller, who will then sell me the product at wholesale prices, and then ship it to your door. Theoretically, then, there are only two middle men - the shipper, and the internet.

A purer form of this middle man role can be found in the process it takes to create a website.

In, say, 2000, in order to create a website, you need:
- knowledge of html
- notepad or an html editor
- an ftp program
- server space (either purchased or through the likes of Angelfire)
- an image editor (hopefully one that can resize images)

Now, in 2007, in order to create a website, you need:
- the internet

Want a blog? A few clicks on blogger. Want to share your photos? A few clicks on flickr. They even make the thumbnails and sort it for you. Why create a website when you can just create wiki? With a wiki you don't need to ftp anything. The internet is also becoming a good middleman for social events. For example, you can use eVite to organize parties. Facebook relationships. In current events--using blogs to find out about the Virginia Tech shooting. And in the aftermath, to create memorials. Thanks to the magic of php and various ajaxian experiences, the internet has gotten rid of all the other middle-men that facilitate the individual's contact with the world.

What I worry about sometimes is... what if I forget how to do it without the internet? I am always wary of a monopoly. In this case, it would be a monopoly of process and thought.

So says I, writing on a blog on the internet. No, the hypocrisy is not lost on me.