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Sunday, January 15, 2017

Internet

I'm old enough to remember having to be a responsible adult while having no internet.  By the time I became a mom, the internet was around, but not nearly in the sense it is now.

It's both a blessing and a curse, and I don't feel I need to drone on about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the internet.  It has certainly made life easier and also introduced dangerous and/or antisocial and/or just plain annoying behaviors.

Then there's shopping.  Shopping was a big deal when I was younger.  Growing up in a small town, we didn't have many fancy stores, and nothing even resembling a mall.  About once a month, my family would load up the car and we'd make a day trip for shopping.  As a teenaged girl with disposable income, I relished those trips.

Now, I don't much enjoy shopping.  I'm thankful I can just surf online for what I need, shop around for the best price, read user reviews, and have the thing arrive at my doorstep in a couple of days.  All this while watching several brick-and-mortar stores go out of business.

But I wonder about our kids.  Meego decides he needs/wants something, looks for it online, asks me if he can order it, places the order.  He has it a couple of days later.  Does he appreciate it as much as I appreciated the things I thought about for a month or so before buying? It often prompts me to launch into one of my "Back when I was your age..." soliloquys.

This week's prompt at Illustration Friday is "internet".  I don't have an actual shopping cart key on my keyboard... not literally.  But figuratively, oh yeah.  So I drew this the old fashioned way - with a pencil and paper.  While doing so, I streamed a movie online.  Then uploaded the sketch.  Onto the internet.


6 comments:

LL Cool Joe said...

I do go to shops when I'm in the States, as you know from my last post, but here in the UK I never do. I do all my shopping online and I think most people do, which of course is why so many shops are closing. Mind you the hassle of returning stuff bought online is a bit of a pain. My older daughter is addicted to shipping online, but my younger daughter would prefer to go to a store.

Love the drawing!

Linda Hensley said...

I almost never buy things online, but I've lived in some inconvenient places for shopping and would've been happy to just stay home and wait for the delivery guy. I don't mess with flax seeds, but I've read that they lose their special powers quickly after being ground. The recommendation is to buy the whole seeds and grind them as needed in a spice/coffee grinder.

Abby said...

I guess it's personal preference. I'm happy to shop online most of the time, and so are our kids. I haven't yet figured out how to get my hair cut online. For that, I still go to the mall.

Abby said...

Probably true on the special flax powers. I'll blame that for my stupidity.

ShadowRun300 said...

I remember the days before internet and now I wonder how I ever lived without it. There's plenty of downside for sure, but overall it makes me happy.
I still shop in stores for most things, but if I'm buying for my kids I do so online. Amazon makes it very easy to get exactly what they want.
Great pic, by the way. I just hope never to see that on my daughter's keyboard. :/

Abby said...

That button could be a dangerous thing!
It's good to have balance and options. I wouldn't like it if all stores went away in lieu of online shopping. What would we do on Thanksgiving?