My colleague Prue found a survey that checked your Web2 dependency. It asked whether you hosted your own web site, read or wrote blogs, contributed to wikis and so.
That started me thinking about the things that I now do by internet that 10 years ago would have required a physical world activity.
Looking up a phone number is now an on-line activity for me. Do they still print phone books?
Books. That’s another major change. Looking around my office and home, i guess I must have been a pretty prolific book buyer, once. I still read. Often i reread books that i bought years ago, but now I am more likely to download an article from the web and read it. I have almost completed a masters degree without going to the physical university library. A very different approach to my earlier studies. The on line library has replaced the physical one. Downloads and print outs have replaced books.
The ones I do buy are, as often as not, bought from Amazon.com.
They still make great gifts though, and I suspect that most of the books I have bought in the past few years have either been as gifts or for my 9 year old son. He shares my love of reading, but also has an extensive collection of (approved) sites in his favourites folder.
I cannot remember when I last used a street directory. For years I used Whereis to print out a map and directions. These days I have a GPS unit in my car, so even online maps have been superseded.
My banking is predominately online. I cannot recall the last time I visited a branch.
I have always had a dictionary very close to my desk. it is still there, sitting beside the thesaurus. They are rarely opened now, though. I go straight to one look when I need a synonym, antonym or definition.
I haven’t quite got into Skype, yet. I have made a few international calls and conference calls that way, and found it useful.
I used to subscribe to a number of international magazines. Now I access them on line.
I still buy a daily newspaper, but also have Google news alerts delivered to my inbox on key topics and as RSS feeds for more general updates.
When I take a photo it is on a digital camera and I view it on my computer before deciding to (rarely) print it out.
When I started this blog, it was part of an e-learning subject. Now I realise I am not just into e-learning. I have adopted e-living!
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May 30th, 2008 at 9:27 am
I love that concept - I think you have coined a new term: e-living. Now we have our normal lives (what’s normal?), our second lives and our e-lives!