How the Internet plugged into our lives and changed the colour of lighting – By Tricia Hrycan

Ever find yourself telling your friends we grew up during a fascinating time? Well you certainly should because life twenty years ago definitely didn’t work the same as it does now! Sure we didn’t experience the introduction of the credit card or the invention of the television but we did experience a time just as, if not more, important: The before and after stages of the Internet. Who knew those big, beige, box-sized computers with the green screen would be replaced with half-inch high laptops (Airbook) and thin and light tablets that require no cords (iPad)? But it is not only these inventions that are the extent of how modern technology has changed everything we do.

For the students who can remember researching for projects before search engines, such as Google, came along they recall the limited resources. As Steve Jackson says in his book, Cult of Analytics: Driving Online Marketing Strategies using Web Analytics, the internet has changed how people research: “The abundance of information available to the consumer has meant that the power has shifted from the companies who could reach the most audience via marketing channels to the consumers themselves deciding when they want to interact with your band.” Anyone can compare prices of a product between an America site and a German site and then decided for himself/herself where to buy the product from online.

Another major change, due to the Internet, is the current way we bank. I’m sure everyone over the age of 20 can remember their Mothers scattering bills across the kitchen table, writing a cheque for each one, licking the envelope and slapping a stamp on each one. Now for everyone who grew up in the 80s, imagine paying your credit card off by the statements you collect in the mail, not email but real live envelope mail. Most of us check our online banking at least once a day and from there pay off our credit cards and utility bills (phone, water, gas, energy, etc…) This has definitely saved money on stamps since the money comes out of the account right then and there. No muss, no fuss.

With the internet and all the options it offers, near or far are no longer issues because the entire world is at your finger tips. Or as Ha-Joon Chang puts in his book, 23 Things they don’t tell you about Capitalism, the internet has lead to “death of distance” in a now “borderless world.”

As cliché as it sounds to say, “The internet has changed the world drastically” just think back to 15 years ago; Would you have ever thought that to be an overused sentence spoken by almost every human being then? I didn’t think so …