I am surprised by how it has become an important part of my day & fun to do, just messing around on the computer.
Of the developments which have taken place over the last three years I would point first to the astonishing growth of content on the web - & here I mean that part which is freely available to all (plus a few stalwarts such as the OED & Times Archive to which the public library has a subscription). Three years ago a Google search might often produce no, or no very helpful results, now it is difficult to find any keyword or phrase which can defeat the mighty search engine.
Along with this seems to be a decrease in the amount of dubious content, or at least in its prominence. Three years ago even an innocent search – I remember particularly one for “girl guide” which, broadminded as I am, it was upsetting to see what kind of company I was in. Whether this is because the various policing authorities & providers have succeeded in removing much of it (or forcing it into even deeper disguise) or whether it just reflects the increasing numbers of grown ups, & grown up content, on line, I leave to others to settle.
Out of curiosity I just tried Googling “Big Bang”. The first 100 out of over 52 million results were, almost without exception, about cosmology, & not one was the modern adolescent’s equivalent of Health & Efficiency or National Geographic.
The other unexpected effect of being a regular on the web is that suddenly I am envious of the young – up to a point.
I have always felt glad to have left all that teenage angst behind; until recently, if forced to nominate an age at which I should like to have stayed ‘for ever’ it would have been 30 – when I finally felt that people would stop treating me with that faintly patronising sense of – Ah well, you’ll learn, you’ll understand, when you are older - but felt that I still had youth & possibility on my side. And no more nappies or broken nights!
But now I envy the skills of youth, the uses which they can make of all this technology, their piercing intelligence – often terrifying.
I only once met Martin Fessey for long enough to have a conversation with him. He embarrassed me by saying how he was in awe of us young things. In his day anyone who could calculate a simple straight regression line was the bees knees, & now look what we could do in no time at all with our computers.
At last, I know exactly how he felt
Links
Gladstone Memorial Prize: 'Gladstone in relation to the Civil Service' by Mereth Cecil Fessey, 1951
Plans For a New System of Business Statistics
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