I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the internet continues to evolve, and how people are evolving with it — or because of it. The internet has become a mainstay in my household, and my kids use it daily for research, communication, and entertainment. I asked my oldest son a few questions about some of the basic research tools I grew up with. Some of his answers I expected, and some were a little surprising. For instance, he could not name a publisher of an encyclopedia. I grew up with World Book and Encyclopedia Brittanica, and Webster was a common name to me. Not so much nowadays — he had only a vague idea about Webster but had not heard of the others. What were his instant answers? Google for research, Facebook for communication, YouTube and Miniclip for entertainment. No surprises here. So what does that say? Simply that times have changed. The tools available to us have changed, and how we use those tools is changing us.
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