Technology Jump

So, as you know, I now have a Droid! I love it so far. And, in my humble opinion, I am NOT one of those people who is distractedly playing with it all the time. Many of you think it's strange that I went from a non-flip phone with no internet to a fancy-pants Droid. Heck, I don't even have a microwave (or, "micro" as my Grandma calls it!).

I've never, ever paid for home internet. Through undergrad I used free AOL trials. Then, for awhile I borrowed from unlocked neighbors. For the last two years I've just used internet at school or cafes. I have been at school so much that I figured by the time I get home, I really don't want to look at my computer anymore. It's worked out, despite occasional annoyances like not being able to look up directions or a recipe. But, now I have interwebs with me all the time. Amazing! I think of it as akin to the situation in many developing countries. People skipped the "home phone" generation and went straight to the cell phone. I skipped the home internet phase and went straight to the personal internet. All in all, I'm pretty glad I held out long enough to avoid paying for internet.

It sounds silly, but these days internet is arguably a human right, whose access is necessary to keep impoverished people and developing nations from falling even further behind. It's no joke. Even in the first-world, "global-leader" United States, people still don't have reliable internet access, let alone the ability to pay for it even when it exists in their area. Consider the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Article 19 states that everyone has the right to “hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.”

Think about it and read more here:

Human Rights and the Internet

Internet Access: Where Law, Economy, Culture, and Technology Meet