It was Tim Berners-Lee who first coined the term "world wide web" back in 1989. Soon afterwards, users of the internet commonly shortened his self-explanatory term to "The Web". And this in turn led to the word "website" - "a set of related web pages located under a single domain name, typically produced by a single person or organization." In fact, when you think of it, each blog is a website. The term "blog" evolved from the earlier name - "web log" - meaning a kind of diary or evolving record located within "The Web".
Being so connected to the internet, very often we might even forget that the word "web" also describes an intricate trap made by a spider using only thin gossamer filament. Now I would like to attempt to connect the two meanings by reflecting on how I have spent the past two mornings after getting up...
...Sitting in my dressing gown and slippers, I have been like a spider's victim trapped in the constantly alluring world wide web - moving from one website to another and unable to detach myself from the invisible thread.
I have gone around in circles from Hotmail to BBC News to the Geograph photo mapping site to various blogs to Wikipedia pages to Hull City to YouTube to Hotmail and round again, sometimes veering off on sidetracks but always returning to the circle. Yes, it's as if I have been caught like a bluebottle or moth - unable to pull myself away from the web.
Time passes and I keep urging myself to get away from this keyboard and this mouse only to confirm that I am helplessly trapped, possibly waiting for the responsible spider to do its deadly rounds. I need to shower, get dressed, simply do something else but the web holds me back and before you know it two or three hours have passed by.
Finally, like a racing driver who has lapped the course over and over again, I drive into the pits. The session is over and, returning to my main metaphor, I can at last escape from the web and begin the day properly.
Even after a quarter of a century of visiting the web, it remains as addictive as ever. What on earth was life like before? I can barely remember.
You describe the addiction that is the WWW perfectly. I wonder how our brains might have changed over the past 30 odd years. Are we becoming more prone to addictive behaviours? I know we don't research as thoroughly. Google has a lot to answer for.
ReplyDeleteYou can read long and worthy articles on the net but mostly people probably flit around like butterflies.
DeleteYou describe the way I relate to the web!
ReplyDeleteIt's a world of possibilities
Still a treasure house of things.
DeleteInteresting post. We can't go back because most of the stuff is gone. Yes, I spend my evenings circling around. I'd rather play on the web that watch TV.
ReplyDeleteCircling around... like a hawk or a vulture?
DeleteIt can become very addicting, informative, useless, or a complete waste of time, but here we are .....
ReplyDeleteI cannot see it ending any time soon.
DeleteIt's easy to sort of "circle" the web that way, jumping from site to site and killing massive amounts of time. I think we all used to read newspapers, watch TV and get out of the house more!
ReplyDeleteI would buy "The Guardian" on Saturdays, "The Sunday Times" on Sundays and "The Sheffield Star" on week nights. Now I don't read any of them. Perhaps I should sue Tim Berners Lee.
DeleteI can remember the before days. My house was much cleaner, I read more real books and I left the house more. I'd like to get back to that, but then I'd miss all my blog friends, so how do I choose?
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should all ration our blog time... if we have the willpower to break away. Stop the circling round.
DeleteIt's of course different when you have to leave the house at a certain time in order to catch your train or get to work, or when you work from home (like I do a lot) and have to be available (online!) from a certain time onwards, attend online meetings and conferences and reply to - you knew it - emails and other messages coming in left, right and centre.
ReplyDeleteIt is rare for me to spend so much time online just for my own pleasure, but I do delve deep into a topic every now and then, researching it on purpose, and very rarely getting side-tracked - rather related to my original topic, though, just opening up new avenues for it.
Who knows what it will be like by the time I retire, in about 12 years!
Yes. Work does force you away from personal browsing. In 12 years time you might have become an addict too.
DeleteI think back to the late nineties when we had the web and I still gardened, maintained things, was very social with friends and family and worked shift work, yet I found plenty of time for WWW. I would chat to people around the world, when such a thing was easy, explore the internet, hook up to put it bluntly and just enjoyed what it had to offer. As self taught about computers, I had a lot to learn too and I then became an adviser to friends who were new to the net. Then the same happened with mobile phones, where I was on the cutting edge and educated others.
ReplyDeleteI rise at 7, watch YouTube clips on my tablet until 8. Shower etc and at 8.30 I turn on the pc. I answer blog comments from the day before, check spam, then start going through the rss feed of blogs I read where I make comments, then blogs where I don't generally make comments. R will appear at some point, usually after 9 and I don't like to type much then, so if the blogging isn't finished, too bad but there are usually only blogs to read by then. Then it is a quick look at FaceBook followed by the electric newspapers. I may return to the pc for various reasons during the day, but normally briefly. At about 5.30 with my pre dinner wine at hand, I look at blogs again and make more comments and perhaps start a construction of a post for the next day. Break for dinner and back at the pc, like now as I type this. I will generally be here until bedtime unless a tv show really grabs me and I want to give it full attention.
As Dr Alban sang at Fernsehgarten, It's My Life.
PS Sometimes I spend too much time writing comments and I think this may be such an occasion.
I feel like Father Pudding and you have come to the confessional box. But it is, I think, good to pause and reflect upon our internet use and overuse too. Does R browse the net very much?
DeleteI spend far too long online. If it ever stops raining I may contemplate going out more often but generally it is a choice of housework, reading or t'internet.
ReplyDeleteAt Internet Addicts Anonymous meetings we would begin by saying, "I'm Neil and I am an internet addict" (But you would say Jaycee - not Neil!)
DeleteI can remember an hour with a print newspaper, written by journalists who had ethics before the web.
ReplyDeleteSitting quietly with a good quality newspaper for an hour was very different from flitting about the web.
DeleteHere is another to feed your addiction: "After actor Timothée Chalamet called the Hull accent "sexy", people in the East Yorkshire city tell us what they think."
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-67686505
In my teens, I dated a couple of girls from Hull and they were as sexy as Lillian Bilocca.
DeleteYou wouldn't have argued with them, them. They got what they wanted. Forceful, 17-stone cod skinners.
DeleteFunny. Jessie and I were just talking yesterday about all the things I used to do. "I don't know how you did it," she said. "I don't either," I said. And then I thought for a second and said, "We didn't have computers then."
ReplyDeleteWe both sighed because honestly- it's the truth.
I spend an hour or more each morning reading through my list of blogs. It has been a good hobby since I retired to keep me connected and informed and entertained.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised that I look at my phone as much as I do and that I carry it around all of the time now. I only used it for emergencies when I first got it but now it's always near and I have to check it whenever it pings at me.
There are days when I don't even switch on my computer, but the next time I do, I spend quite a while catching up on what I've missed!
ReplyDeleteI try to just do one lap in the morning and one lap in the afternoon. For me, the real test is on the weekends when I try to avoid doing any laps at all.
ReplyDeleteI share your view and your haplessness. I may spend even longer sessions in my chair in front of the screen than you do. I sometimes find that I have been there for 4 or 5 hours at a stretch. And I constantly read advice that says to get up and do some activity on my feet. Move around. Stop sitting. I know that is good and true advice because I read it . . . on the Web!
ReplyDelete