You can't deny that in the last couple of years, the internet has seen an unprecedented rise in popularity. Like sand after a trip to the beach, it's lodged itself into every awkward crack of our everyday lives, cementing our dependency on it beyond the realms of casually browsing poorly made conspiracy websites and sending humorous chain mails or GIF animations around the office. It's actually found a purpose as a primary source of up to date information and as a tool for organising almost every facet of our daily lives. The chances of any one person being able to do more than scratch the surface of what's available out there are slim. Just typing something like 'strange horse' into a search engine gives me so many options, I'm not even sure how I lived my life without the knowledge that there was a website with strange horse pictures or that there was a Strange Horse game available to play online! (I honestly couldn't even hazard a humorous guess as to what this game would entail, it's baffling beyond whimsical speculation)
As a teenager, I would while away hours entranced by the looping serenades of the 'hamsterdance.com' (which may still exist in some form or another online) or marvel at the absurdity of the infinite, randomly generated pages of 'mingthemerciless.com' (long since taken down). Visiting emailed links from friends with suggestions of unusual websites to visit, tucked away in the corner of the internet often become cult classics among the youth who had too much time on their hands and not enough friends.
These days the internet has been brought very much into the light with social networking and mobile internet, though with so many of us now using the internet in some form or another, we've very much restricted where we go with it. No longer are we exploring the unknown dark reaches of home made web sites or dabbling in now defunct sites like Geocities to create a little piece of individualised web space or browsing others, rather we're more comfortable within the confines of our simple online tools like Facebook and eBay with YouTube possibly remaining as one of the few places you can easily express yourself online. We often search for what we need on Google, barely needing to browse past page 1 of the search results to find what we're looking for and yet despite the fact that our exploration of the internet has become so limited, our demand for a more accessible internet has grown.
Because of this growing demand, the overlap of various gadgets offering access to the same tools has left buyers scratching their heads as to which gadget is best for the job. You can now get satellite navigation systems not just as a separate device, but also on your mobile phone or integrated into your car. You can access networking sites like Facebook and Twitter from games consoles, catch up on missed TV shows on laptops, access your satellite channels, read books on iPads, listen to the radio, send emails, browse YouTube, watch movies, buy movies, buy handbags, buy weather veins, toothpaste, trousers, cardboard, old glass bottles, used mobile phones so you can watch more movies and send texts, film your own movies on your mobile phone to put on YouTube so people can watch it on their mobile phones and then tweet about how terrible your film was on Twitter from their Xbox before they hire a taxi using an app on their iPhone to take them to a mental asylum where they'll spend their days licking the carpet and desperately pressing on the wall with their index finger in the hope it'll respond like a touch screen.
All this multi-tool style integration of internet, communication and entertainment services has obviously made things far more convenient, but at what cost? With so much available on that little device we carry around in our pockets, we're finding ourselves tapping away at the little things more than we ever used to; checking our emails, seeing what's on TV tonight, finding the best place to eat in town. Usually whilst wandering obliviously down a busy street, careering through crowds of disgruntled passers by or when out with friends who apparently lack the charm and wit of your smart phone and so fail to tear you away from your blessed apps; apps which you then feel compelled to bore your ignored friends with once the conversation has inevitably died down and everyone else decides to whip out their phones.
And I speak purely from my own experiences as a techno-drone and not as a holier-than-thou frowner upon all things I deem below me. After spending an eye-watering amount of time playing on a new computer game I bought recently, I was suddenly aware of how dulled my senses had become to everything else around me once I'd finally bought myself round to switching off the console. Chairs? Chairs were boring, they only have one purpose and there isn't even an integrated bottle opener in it or anything. Birds? They're boring. They just fly around. In my computer game, I can shoot birds. Reading books? Writing articles? Sod off! All that black and white writing and all that thinking you have to do what with all the using your imagination and junk. Where are the button combinations? The explosions? The saturation of all my senses? You can keep your stinky tangible reality with all those nasty people and painful emotions and chores. Sony and Microsoft don't care if I don't shower or choose to sit around in my pants until mid afternoon. I had everything I needed right in front of me, everything else was just a distraction.
But that's computer games for you. They're immersive and sometimes it's hard to simply put down the controller and slip on a pair of trousers and wipe the crust from round your mouth when the protagonist in your computer game is trying to evade a hundred very angry Nazi's with very itchy trigger fingers and the last checkpoint is just around the next wall of crates. At least you're away from the prying eyes of the public, swearing to yourself and throwing the controller harmlessly into a pillow when you get killed for the billionth time by the same boss. Because of this, I choose to play computer games when I have some time to myself, not earnestly ignoring someone who's taken the time to keep me company, whereas on the other hand, someone who slips out their phone for a bit of mindless tapping when they could simply ask how your day was is openly expressing their boredom with your presence.
I call to mind an unusual experience when I walked into a pub around Christmas time and was greeted with the bizarre sight of three equally bald gentlemen sat at separate tables, all transfixed by their iPhones, one even daring to risk ignoring his wife who wore an expression of deep dismay while his fingers caressed the flat screen of his new lover.
During moments like that, you should be perfectly within your rights to snatch the offending device from their grubby mitts and shove it down the front of your pants and see how they react. Will they try and get it back? Will they call the police? Will they even want it back at all after a few dozen squat thrusts and some thorough underwear adjustment? Give it a try! Let me know what happens!
