When I first started my journey online I was still on dial-up. Once every while, I listened to the whirly noises the little grey box on my computer made as it performed a ‘handshake’ with another modem somewhere.
Like magic, I was online and I used those few expensive minutes to connect to a BBS, upload code, download email, perform a search via Altavista and various other simple tasks. Then I hurried to disconnect. Dialing in was expensive after all.
As I relax here in the beautiful Dordogne in the south of France, I’m oddly reminded of those hectic times. It’s very quiet here and there’s no Wi-Fi. The mobile signal we do have is hardly enough to download a single email and constantly switching from one provider to another. I promised my wife and kids that I am going to try to disconnect, get away and enjoy our vacation as much as possible. So once every couple of days I switch on my data connection, and wait for the weather forecast (turns out to be very important when camping) and other messages to trickle into to my phone.
I’m not complaining – it’s nice to focus on other things. I read books (albeit mostly pulpy action novels), take different walk in the hills or mountains as I am used to the flatness of the Netherlands, and am enjoying being slightly disconnected from the office and my life back home.
I know every photo I want to upload to Facebook is going to take a few minutes, and it will cost some money. While I’m only paying a couple of cents per megabyte here, it all adds up when you realize a photo easily comes in at 4MB.
By putting a price on those things you’re forced to think about the value of each updated status on Facebook, reloading your Twitter feed, or casually browsing Instagram.
I’m not passing judgement here, I’m merely recognizing that I’m part of a generation that is still very much delighted by the technology that we have access to, because we grew up in a time when that all didn’t yet exist. I realize how fortunate those of us are to live in a time where technology is so ubiquitous and available to almost anyone at almost any time.