The Internet, Googling and Tie Knots

It is quite difficult to admit this, but until today I was only able to do one tie knot - the double-simple - and barely is the word that springs to mind. I had my friends, my father, my uncle and even my colleagues to do more complex knots for me - namely the Windsor - and never really knew how to do it. I just had the feeling someone would always do it for me or I would use the double-simple when I was in trouble.

This will look silly to most of you, but it's not the point of today's post.

The point is that today I decided to do the Windsor knot. I "googled" 'tie knot' and found several sites showing how to do it. I downloaded some diagrams and managed to do the knot for the first time in my life. It doesn't look perfect, but it's a start.

"So the point is that you now know how to do the damn knot?"

Not really. I don't think I could do it without looking at the diagram again and even if I don't have my laptop with me, I always know where to get it: the Internet using Google or some other search engine.

And this is the point of the post: are we really learning with the propagation of the Internet and the enhancement of search engines?

Probably not, it's almost like there is an immense knowledge on the Internet - more specifically on the World Wide Web - but it's just suspended above us and we pick it up whenever we want. The problem is a lot of the times - not always, granted - we are really not learning, because like me with the knots we take it for granted that we can always get it.

So I thought: what would happen to the world, if the WWW didn't work for 1 day, 1 week? What would happen if this suspended knowledge went away for a while? Other things would go away as well: transaction websites and ultimately if the Internet infrastructure wouldn't work, communication tools like email, among many other things.

I remember someone once wrote a short story about the future where this by then uber-connectivity would stop and people would finally rediscover the world around them: the smells, the landscapes, etc.

Well, this post is getting too deep already, so I will leave you with this thought: I love the Internet and am marvelled at the way it - as well as, for instance, mobile communications - has changed our lives, but I just hope we, and generations to come, don't forget to look around and rediscover ourselves, and those around us ... once in a while.