Nearly 13 years ago while I was the ripe old age of 11 this news report was one sign of a revolution in the making – man how things have developed. Its amazing to see how much things have changed since then and how some things have remained oddly the same. We still use the net for the freedom it gives us all to express ourselves and for the wealth of information it provides. However, now more than ever I think we also use the net in ways that are vastly more self indulgently personal.
The net for many of us is more then just communicating with friends and getting info, for at least a portion of our browsing, I believe we use the net to find out about ourselves. To discover what makes us tick and to find others out there with similar twitches. We don’t always realize we are doing this but I think it’s one of the strongest pulls the net has on us; the endless possibilities of finding other people that we can relate to.
Anyway, enough pseudo deepness. On a more lighter note I did find it interesting to hear the reporter refer to the net as just “internet” dropping the word “the”. In today’s world you’d probably think a person misspoke or was uneducated if you heard them say “go get on internet for the directions”. I am curious if the reporter spoke in this manner because he was unaware or if this was par for the course when the segment was taped?
Looking back 13 years ago I cant help but wonder where we will be when 2019 rolls around and if I’ll be posting some other form of blog more advanced than I can imagine on this same topic stating, wow have things changed!
hahaha!
As far as I can tell, that first person in the video to respond to the question “what does the internet mean to you?” is said to be from Oslo.
Oslo is the capital of the Kingdom of Norway…but the flag is that of Sweden, our neighbor-country.
I’m not surprised…it’s just yet another example of
“ach, where the heck are these european countries, anyway??”
Of course, I might have misheard…but I think Oslo is what they’re saying.
Cardinal Richelieu
October 18th, 2006
“the endless possibilities of finding other people that we can relate to”
Don
Don
October 18th, 2006
Don
Do you disagree?
Cardinal
Dumb american, I guess. I know 3, 4 flags total? I should work on that I think.
Good eye! Seeing as how this was a major news broadcast they should have gotten that right! I of course, had no clue it was wrong though
Robert
October 18th, 2006
514446 Blog Verification…
514446…
514446 Blog Verification
October 18th, 2006
No I agree with that statement.
Don
October 19th, 2006
yeah yeah, “stupid american”… I think labelling americans as stupid is a bit too easy. Granted, the US is swarming with idiots (just look at thisistrue.com, or the political system), but I refuse to believe that americans as a general group are stupid.
I suspect the reason few americans know much about the geographical and political reality outside of North America is underprioritized.
For comparison, my little sister is 15 and their class recently completed a round-the-world “tour” of the atlas, and had to memorize almost all countries in the world, their location, and the location of their capitals…even the caribbean islands and the US states were included.
It’s easy to laugh at “the stupid americans”, but when you stop to think, it’s all just a tragic case of not being taught these things by the schools.
Major news networks, however, have absolutely no excuse. They have atlases and 24/7 web access (okey, they probably didn’t have the last one when this show was aired, but they do now, and they still make the same mistakes from time to time) Being a reporter means verifying what you’re saying is correct.
Please tell me if I am wrong in surmising the reason for american ignorance on europe? If I’m way off here, I really should be corrected
Richelieu
Cardinal Richelieu
October 24th, 2006
humm, sorry if I sound as I’m giving you a hard time for saying “stupid american”. I’m really not; my point was entirely about other people labelling americans as stupid. You are of course free to call yourself stupid, in the same way black people colloquially call eachother by the N-word but go spare if a white bloke says the word.
Cardinal Richelieu
October 24th, 2006
This video is amazing. Great blog! I remember when I was in grade school and we would take trips to the Science Center which had a computer room with like 25 huge desktops in it, and we thought it was incredible that you could send a message from one computer to another one on the other side of the room. Like an instant message from Computer #3 to Computer #20. That was so amazing to us, and we were in the same room. I’m old.
Jerielle
October 24th, 2006