Mothers, conflicts, and the internet

I often get into an argument with my mom. It goes like this — She asks me to do something. I challenge her ask. She feels I'm ignoring her helpful advice. I point to web search and claim that she is wrong. She asks if I trust the internet more than her. I say she is missing the point. She feels bad. I feel bad.

We don't talk for ten minutes. Then we pretend like the argument never happened. We repeat this maneuver every nine days.

~

I was born a few months before Google launched Search. I never had to think about the availability of information. It was always there. I have no idea what it means to live without a highly indexed, always available, extremely fast interface connecting me to the internet. Searching on the internet is like the extended functionality of my body. I use my hands to eat, brush my teeth, and type in a search query to a billion web pages. Ordinary, mundane, simple tasks.

Infinity, to me, is as big as the internet. Access to a resource I can refer to anytime for any question — my whole life — has led to a generational desensitization. The Internet is just like the air I breathe, always there.

~

My agency is sponsored by Google. There was nobody to sponsor my mum's. People have to accept the level of access they grow up with as their world. Worlds were much smaller fifty years ago.

If her aunt told her to not take a bath after eating, and not eat certain things on certain days of the week then it must be the right thing. The notion of challenging an idea comes easy when you grow up with infinite access. It is easier to type fifty words than to travel fifty kilometres for an opposing view.

The generational desensitization will also happen twenty years from now. I wonder what I will fight about with my children every nine days.