This "Thing" called the Internet

I know you all missed my blogging for the week since I been overwhelmed by sickness (sinuses) and work. So, here it is just a day late and a dollar short... but maybe that means I'll post twice as much this week... who knows.

So, this thing called the internet seems to get lots of people up in arms over the things that seem to pop up out of no where and without anyone's permission. What you use to do, you can now do faster, more efficiently, and much cheaper. I understand that and I agree that those are all benefits of the technology. My question is, do you do anything that you didn't do before because you couldn't do it before?

The example I go back to in class is the payroll information. Of course you can access that information with a few keystrokes and the click of a mouse and of course you couldn't do that before, but although the method has changed, the end result is still the same. You accessed the information. What did you do with the information you accessed?

I like the phrase:
Technology is the art of convincing people that they can't live without and item that was invented just yesterday.

How did people ever drive anywhere before GPS? How on earth did settlers track across America without cars and without a GPS system... So we can do it quicker, more efficient, and for (relativly speaking) less money. So when is the last time you got in your car and drove across America?

The bottom line I guess is with the ability to do things quicker, more efficient, and with less cost, are we more productive? Do we produce more things of value every day than we did before or are we creating more and more garbage and enjoying more and more wasted/free time?

Are we getting dumber? Are the majority of people arrogant enough to think that learning is obsolete. I don't need to know anything because the internet knows everything. Except the internet knows everything because collectively the people that built it know everything... and I wouldn't need to use the internet if I didn't want to know something I didn't already know...

Okay, it is scary, but that almost makes sense. And since I like to make sense, I am going to quit rambling now before I produce even more un-educated non-sense.