[9]                    How Does the Internet Impact
                             Our Daily Lives? 
                                     by Richard Nichols
                                        nichols@hermes.law.stetson.edu

     The available information on the Internet in the form of data, 
researchable data, text on myriads of subjects into one's computer whether 
it be at work or home has reached the mind-boggling stage. There is 
probably no subject matter that cannot be found on the "net."

     Recently, I needed to find out about whether companies I was going to 
contract with, were licenced in our state. I called the regulatory agency 
and obtained the information. As an afterthought, I inquired whether this 
information was available on the "net." The response was, "I don't know 
what you are talking about." This is the sad part of this great 
"information highway."

     There are many people who still are unaware of the Internet and its 
far reaching abilities. Well, after I hung up, I started to search the 
state government sites and lo and behold I found a site for Professional 
Business Regulation. It turned out to be a searchable database. I was able 
to find out what I needed about the companies I was considering doing 
business with.

     My hobby is genealogy, the tracing of one's ancestry. It is one of the 
largest hobbies in the world. The information available to people 
interested in this hobby is growing by leaps and bounds on the Internet. 
More and more searchable databases are being created. Eventually 
organizations like the National Census Bureau, National Archives, Church of 
the Latter Day Saints, etc will make available on the Internet their 
databases to search. Most of the searchable material now is being done by 
average people to complete projects to make this hobby more easily 
researched from their home. The State of Virginia has a library where one 
can download "actual" documents on Civil War pension applications. There 
you will see the actual document in the person's own handwriting. WOW! What 
a concept!

     At my job, which is at a medium sized academic law library, the 
Internet has become part of our daily lives. Legal information can be 
researched via many different facets on the Internet; via federal, state 
and local governments, various searchable databases, vendors, etc.

     The Internet, in my opinion, is here to stay. It will change over 
time. It brings people together via e-mail, 'chat' lines, newsgroups, etc. 
It allows one to explore almost anything that he or she can think of. I am 
still a novice in this world of rapidly expanding and changing cyberspace. 
I will never master it to its fullest. I will bump and chug along the 
information highway finding myself turning off here and there to visit 
museums, play games, learn the latest sports news, update myself on the 
latest changes in a certain law or just continue plodding along finding 
answers to my genealogy questions. In any case, I have found this new world 
of technology and information to be a dramatic change in our lives for the 
better.
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     Reprinted from the Amateur Computerist Vol 7 no 2 Winter 1997
        available free via email from jrh@umcc.umich.edu and
                http://www.umcc.umich.edu/~jrh/acn
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