What happened if the Internet crashed?

That was the topic of our supper conversation last night. Jena and I were on the offensive side of if the Internet disappeared, we would be in huge trouble. Not just us personally, but there would be major problems in this world because we are so dependent on the online world.

Dad, being the practical person that he is, said you could most certainly live without the Internet. Life would continue. Of course, you have to understand that he only visits about three online sites: the weather, cattle markets and grain markets. Simple for him to revert back to non-online life. (Just a note here - for some of us, ahem, life would just NOT continue without the Internet.)

This whole conversation started because I found a bookcase full of Mom's old nursing books and Dad's old horse books while I was organizing downstairs and was asking Jena if I could just toss the nursing ones. Mom kept them just because she could never bear to part with them, even though she rarely used them. Jena said toss them since she has her own updated nursing books and even then, she usually searches the Internet before looking at her books.

Then Dad remarked that if something happened to the Internet, we might want/need those books. Well, if the entire Internet crashes, the last thing we would be concerned about would be researching nursing or horse books. Yep, we would have much greater concerns than that.

Jena and I talked about how rarely we opened a paper book for research; if we want to know something, Google holds the answer. I can't even recall the last time I opened a dictionary or encyclopedia in book form. Even in my quiet time, studying for kid's club or preparing for Sunday School, I look to online Biblical resources.

Really the Internet holds so much more information that could be printed in books and takes up much less space than books ever could. In addition to that, the search feature is so much faster and easier online than looking through a book. That's not to say that all books can be replaced by the Internet, because there are some wonderful books that I'm keeping, but as for research books - I'm all in favor for looking online!

Jena and I are in total agreement to that fact. Now we just have to convince Dad......