Internet is fun!

 Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach that person to use the internet and he won’t bother you for weeks…

I belong to the generation born in the mid 70’s, where the school’s favourite debate topic used to be the, “satellite television- boon or bane”… oh! we spoke so much on that. We were the Doordarshan generation, where the television telecast used to be available only in the evenings, a few years later we started getting the breakfast news. Our first encounter with the computer was in the mid to late 80’s when computer was introduced to us in our schools. We had to enter the divine room taking off our footwear outside the computer lab (room). We learnt computers more my drawing the flow charts of events in our computer notebooks… mind you, I am not talking about the Notebook!  Starting from input and ending in the output. The boxes used were oval, rectangular, diamond shaped etc.  College days, studying Hotel Management we had very basic computer science or application, can’t really remember what the subject was called.. there was dbase, Lotus 123 and those big floppies a few years later the floppies became smaller and more compact.  It was quite an accessory walking around with a bunch of them. Each having different data, instead of carrying so many books; one had to just carry the compact floppies.

My first experience with using computers for some worthwhile purpose was when I started working at a 5 Star Deluxe hotel.  Fidelio was the new software that had arrived in the hotels at that time, in the late 90s. It had modules for the Rooms division; front office and housekeeping used to use that. It was great, a big development over the earlier software. Not much of internet was in use, emails were unheard of, mobile phones had just arrived. They were the size of a walky talky. The incoming calls were charged too, it was quite a big deal to have a mobile connection. The handset was expensive so was the network connection. The monthly bill easily could go into thousands. At least 6 to 7 thousand is what I remember of my brother’s monthly BPL mobile bill to be.

I got my first email id, a yahoo id in the year 2000. I still have and use it. That’s when I started seeing the fun side of the internet. Could send emails to my friends and instantly receive their replies, no hassles of posting  letters.. what is called a snail mail now. Could send greetings and messages in a matter of a few clicks on the keyboard. Batchmates.com became a successful platform for people looking out for friends from their schools and colleges. Yahoo groups were formed for friends to exchange messages, basically socialize and catch up virtually with their friends and colleagues. Then came the era of social networking, Orkut was the first major one. Almost everyone had a profile there and we started looking up for our friends, neighbours, colleagues that we had lost touch with; suddenly everybody was here. People could check out profiles, pictures and chat as well. Again there were debates just like the ones we were used to regarding the satellite television. I guess the society just loved the debates and it was more of a walk down the memory lane for us, remember we belong to that generation or people even older who didn’t have all these lifestyle products and an amazing technology at our disposal. We loved just about anything foreign that we received from our friends and family members who made overseas trips once in a while.

Then facebook happened and it has changed the way people network socially. There are professional networks like the linkedin and many more. People do lots more over the internet now. Apply for jobs, check out reviews for hotels, movies, restaurants, travel destinations etc,  shop, pay bills, book tickets, create virtual albums, share  information with their friends. People even seek guidance from a similar interest groups. Now all this is available in our mobile phones. Mobile is always with the person and the world of information is with him on the go. Internet on the mobile is certainly fun. There is no scope for an individual to get bored at any moment, even if he or she is all alone.

For me internet has been a mode of connecting, keeping in touch with family and friends. I was a person who wrote letters, posted cards and greetings to my near and dear ones. That process has become so much convenient with the internet available on the mobile phones. There are so many apps available and the list keeps growing. Listen to the music, play games, check out articles and write ups, visit blogs and have reminders, get news flash and be connected with friends all around the globe, easily I have around 1500 contacts on facebook alone, if I need an information real quick I just need to post it on one of the networking sites and within minutes I’d have the information with me. If this is not fun then what is!

This post is an entry for the contest, Internet is fun on Vodafone, if you have liked it please do vote. www.vodafone.in/fun