Like many I do dabble at using the Internet to search facts, shop online, communicate with friends and keep up with the news. All done from a small laptop, phone or tablet from the comfort of my own home.

Now this is not a breaking-news story and very few will find anything astonishing about what I do. Well not until one stops to think.

Anyone under the age of 25 probably won’t or can’t imagine what life was like.

When I was a child and young adult we didn’t have mobile anything except a small transistor radio so today’s freedoms are a far cry from those historic days.

Being able to find out “stuff” at the stroke of a few keys is amazing but it has made us a bit lazy.

The other thing is that how much do we use of modern technology? We are told that the internet has the answer to every question but how much is made up and how much is actual fact? Anyway an answer is only as profound and informative as the question asked.

So we sit at our computers, tablets and phones and are told that they can do this, that and the other. All those features and I bet that the average Bod doesn’t even know how or where to find them let alone use them. As for the internet; maybe a bit of shopping, listening to music, watching a couple of video clips, storing photos, e-mailing, social media posts and the odd fact being looked up is what the most of us use the powerful machines for. Its a bit like having a top end sports car and driving once a week to the shops and never getting out of second gear or buying all the climbing equipment to scale Everest and just walk up a hill and returning home and not even opening the backback whilst out.

Prior to the modern day ways we had to listen at school, ask others, read a book or become a member of the local library. It took time to research and learn. No copy and paste back then. Okay, a photo copier could be used but on the whole a pen and paper was the only way of making notes and saving information.

To send that information took an age. Now its beamed anywhere at the blink of an eye.

News papers were a common sight and it took time for articles to trickle around society. Something that happens and as it is happening can now be seen around the world in seconds. However, reading these snippets online is no substitute for chatting it out with others and if it was fun or sad then one could laugh or support each other rather that sit alone in a virtual world and be consumed in guilt and depression.

So much of the technology is wasted but on the hand many books and articles went unread by the masses years ago so I guess things haven’t changed much. What has changed is the way we use or don’t use.

Certainly, finding new music was more fun and waiting for news stories to be printed made things more exciting but on the whole the internet is whatever you want, whenever you want it and how much of it you want.

Are we better off? Thats a question only the person answering can be honest about as for some the reply will be no and for others yes.