Thursday, October 27, 2011

Do you remember 1975?

Life before computers were common and the Internet was pretty much reserved for brainiacs and the government?

When you had a question, you had to look up the answer in a book? A book made of paper?

There were good things about that time. You couldn't just type a word into a search engine and find an answer. You had to go through a thought process of where the answer might be found. Did that question require a dictionary? a thesaurus? an encyclopedia? Maybe a more specialized reference?

Sometimes, the answers come too quickly now. Questions aren't pondered. There's no gestation of thoughts.

Then again, my grandson can spend hours researching the Titanic without waiting for a ride to the library. And he can draw pictures like this:

Iceberg ahead!

Split in half! 
Going down! 
The rescue ship
In 1875, the idea that I would have access to dictionaries, encyclopedias and libraries FULL of books in 1975 was just as unimaginable as the Internet was in 1975. Sometimes, I miss the "olden days" but then learning is learning and I like now just as much.

What do you think?

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