World Wide Web

I was without my laptop for a few days when in for repair, it was awful! Such a relief when I got it back. I now have a tablet too, so I shouldn't have to go through that again.
I wish the internet had been around during my and my children's school days. No trawling through encyclopaedias or trips to the library by GCs looking for information.

I'm an embracer in all things practical - shopping, kindle books, banking, holidays, etc.

But I am not sure if online forums are a good thing or not. Can't decide.

I love the internet and can't imagine life without it. We had really poor wifi and mobile signal last week while we were away and I felt so out of touch.

I mainly use it for GN and FB to keep in touch with family. It is so much easier to send a message immediately than have to stop doing stuff when one of them rings up. I also shop/research online.

I've mentioned before that my brother, aged 61, has no interest in using the internet and I worry that he will miss out more and more as he gets older eg Barclays closing how many branches? )

It is amazing to think that the huge, humming thing, that took up a whole room and was so delicate we had to ear hair nets and plastic overshoes, when I was at work is now so small and user friendly.

Little did we know when we bought DS1 and DS2 ZXs that it was the start of a whole new world.

If it helps, I would be happy to answer specific questions.

Apologies for all the 'I's. Miss Furness will be turning in her grave!!

I use a laptop and have 2 tablets. ( I use the lighter one in my handbag when travelling!) It's such a joy to be able to check facts instantly, look up addresses or catch up on current read. I still require some tips from Gds and must admit it took me a wee while to get used to Windows 8 !!

I have a laptop and 2 tablets. (I use the lighter tablet in my handbag when travelling)

It's such a joy to be able to check facts instantly-look up addresses or catch up on latest read!

I still get tips from Gds and must admit it took me a wee while to get used to Windows 8.

Oops -- obviously am still having some technical hiccups!

It is a huge boon. Like besottedgran, I use it constantly to check facts and obtain info. I remember when Google first came on the scene, and I had a new job and a Luddite boss, how impressed she was with my ability to find things out fast! Husband loves it when we are watching a movie, and it eludes us where else we know a certain actor from, and I can instantly check the filmography and remind us.

It can be a curse too. My adult children are literally glued to their laptops and other gadgets, sometimes to the exclusion of just about anyone or anything else.

I can no longer imagine a world without it.

I use it in my teaching; for research; occasional shopping (not much as I like to support small businesses locally); to communicate with family through email/skype/facetime; to send/receive photo's; to proofread and amend documents; to read books; to watch films/TV programmes and for one very special online forum.
All of which I could, indeed I once did, manage without a computer - except the online forum.

Looking back I think similar thoughts where made about mobile phones,whoever thought for one minute we would be carrying around such a small device to communicate with our families 24hrs a day ? I would be lost without my pc/tablets and OH would not be able to keep track of his love of vintage cars and of course on line forums are a must,can't imagine life without them now.

A huge boon, I think the pluses far outweigh the minuses. I would like to ration use for children, but if I were a mother living in a small high-rise flat in a crummy city I might think twice about that.

I have made some excellent real-life friends through forums, I would never knock the use of forums. We have house-swapped and holidayed and been to weddings and had meet-ups.

I hate shopping, retail therapy are dirty words to me, so buying online is wonderful.

I think I preferred the slower pace of work before computers, and of course so many people lost their jobs, offices can seem quite soulless sometimes. My niece's partner has large offices but doesn't allow a scrap of paper on his premises! His employees are more likely to be working with two screens side by side, making notes on one whilst looking at the other. I wonder if they remember how to write.

TV catchup, being able to listen to songs from my youth at will, concerts on youtube, online radio stations playing your preferred type of music while you work, being able to download things, it's all way beyond what I thought would happen way back in the early 80s when I first had a go at computer programming with the aid of a cassette recorder, a plug into the TV and a book from the library and was excited when a few numbers appeared on the screen. Emails, online banking, wonderful.

I joined the local WI last month and they are 20 years older than me and my friends who joined with me, we find it truly frustrating that they don't even use email. At least ten notices and the same number of forms have been passed round while people have been talking on the two occasions I have been, it's impossible to concentrate and they could so easily have been sent by email.

Also, having seen magazines with adverts aimed at older people, the prices in them are twice as high as they could be paying online. They miss out hugely.

So glad I learned to use it before I got too old. In addition to all the above I use my local authorities free digital library, listen to music and talks, either audio or video, and skype my grandchildren.

Obviously everyone here at GN is online and embracing the internet and new technology so I'm talking to the converted. Does it matter that the generations behind us are at risk of losing some cognitive skills through their almost total reliance on the internet and technology - memory, calculation, the ability to concentrate for long periods for example? What about loss of physical interaction with other people - youngsters might text or email people in the same house, next room even (I know that happens!!!), chatting to shopkeepers etc., learning to make real rather than virtual friends - is that a worry? Does it concern you that you do so much on the web that it's loss, even temporarily, will cause you problems? Do you think the internet and the WWW have helped change the way we live?

Questions, questions, question...apologies, my husband calls me the closest thing to the Spanish Inquisition that he knows!

I have a friend who set up the IT department at the school where she worked. Now retired and in her 70s, she refuses to even turn on her PC 'in case it goes wrong'! Yet she is forever phoning to ask me to look things up, or get AA routes. Exasperating!

Before I got my laptop, I was beginning to feel like a second class citizen, as lots of radio and TV programmes suggested visiting their websites. I had no help setting up, apart from a book, and my knowledge is still limited, but I can do all I need to.

Yes, I do worry that people will forget how to think things out for themselves at times. However there is so much knowledge out there on the internet that people are looking up how to do things that they had never even heard of before. A friend has taught herself to quilt from the internet, others learn languages. You can learn how to smoke fish and meat, how to dry food, how to make wine. A whole reference library contained in one small box. My husband has fixed our cars, I have laid a parquet floor, all from the internet.

My son can quite happily play with gaming online friends for four hours straight, but he will then go out in the evening. Sometimes his gaming friends are his online friends. He skypes his friends from school so doesn't lose tough, and also uses facebook - I'm only still in contact with two of my oldest schoolfriends. It's far easier now to stay in contact. For a start there's no father guarding the phone and muttering about the bills, and even not telling me when friends rang me trying to find me.

Eighteen years ago i decided that I needed to know more about the menopause, my male doctor didn't seem to have a clue. I went to the library. Nothing. One very heavy incomprehensible tome, clearly written for other doctors. The occasional very short and general article in a woman's magazine. But when I started to investigate on the internet, all of my questions about what to expect were finally answered. I have never forgotten how grateful I was to be able finally to find the information I wanted.

It worries me that, since having the internet I no longer seem to read books [or have the concentration to do so].

I was like that for a while, but then I thought - it's still reading, just reading differently. I'm still gaining information and being made to think about new things. I used to read during the day, in lunch breaks or snatch a moment at coffee breaks, now I read in bed. I still read during breaks, but it takes different forms.

It's definitely got its benefits! I've just heard that my son shows his 3 yr old daughter programmes he loved like Button Moon via YouTube. Apparently she loves them so they are sharing in something rather lovely I think all thanks to the WWW!

Not sure if the article is relevant [and the link probably won't work anyway] but I read an article in the Independent Magazine [2/11/13] called 'The Attention Deficit' about the effects of people spending so much time on computers

www.independent.co.uk › Arts + Ents › Books › Features

Can never get newspaper links to work; the article is by Daniel Goleman.

My DH says my ipad is attached permanently to my right arm , in addition I have an iPod which keeps me in touch with the Archers and all things Radio 4. Am sometimes bemused when I see a toddler in a pushchair being amused by watching a carton on a tablet. But if they had been around when my children were young I am sure I would have done the same. I love the way my GS look up information on line and use it to show me stuff they think I may have missed. Do they seem to spend a long long time
playing games on the web? IMHO yes they do I would prefer to see them out in park running around and playing but doesn't seem to be the way things are done nowadays.

Mollie, you would find this book very interesting:
The Shallows: How the Internet Is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember by Nicholas Carr

Thank you, Mamie... I'll go and look for it.

Right now I'm doing something about networks on the web and had to watch a Youtube clip about connectiveness ... it was illustrated by the RSA which was so fascinating that I didn't hear a word that was said because I was entranced by the illustrations. So instead of doing what I set out to do I ended up clicking on other RSA Youtube links and setting up my own network of connectiveness...they really are fascinating to watch!

Here's a link to just one... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isPj5KgpVqg

www.youtube.com/watch?v=isPj5KgpVqg