The following two quotes are attributed to the late science fiction writer Isaac Asimov: "Education isn't something you can finish." "Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is." The prolific Asimov, who wrote or edited over 500 books and penned roughly 90,000 postcards and letters in his lifetime, was absolutely correct on both counts. It's a shame that in this age of rapid technological advancement, students leave education in the rear-view mirror, maintaining that their learning days are surely over. But who says that we have to dump our books in crates as soon as we snag our diploma? Why not continue delving into Shakespeare, Newton, or Lincoln even after we've left the Ivory Tower? What many people fail to realize is that schools, colleges, and universities merely scratch the surface of the course offerings they make available to students. You can't possibly expect more than a cursory look, for exa...

I came across the following quote on Facebook earlier today: "Fifteen years ago, the internet was an escape from the real world. Now, the real world is an escape from the internet."  The quote is attributed to Noah Smith, a professor of finance. What Smith is essentially saying is that we seem to "live" digitally now more than we do the traditional way. It makes perfect sense. If you're like me, you probably communicate more with friends and family via email, text, WhatsApp, or social media than you do in person. You're likely shopping more online than you do at brick-and-mortar stores. And you're probably watching movies more frequently through services like Netflix than at the movie theater. While there's no question the convenience the internet affords us has made our lives easier in myriad ways, it's also made human interaction much more impersonal. If you'd asked me in the 90s whether relatives and friends would someday wish ...

Imagine how different our lives would be if the internet didn't exist. For starters, you wouldn't be reading this right now. You would have no choice but to communicate with others by phone, via letter, or in person, as social media wouldn't be available. Chances are, you watch shows or movies via streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, or Hulu. You would instead be forced to watch them on TV or rent them through Redbox or the local video store. Imagine how many people would not be together if it weren't for Internet dating sites like Match.com or eHarmony. (I'm the perfect example of this, as I reacquainted with my now-wife, who I first met in middle school, through MySpace. You would have to make payments by mail, through the phone, or in person. You wouldn't be able to make purchases online. Instead, you'd have to hit up brick-and-mortar stores or buy your stuff through catalogs that come in the mail. It's important to note that were in...

Isaac Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century. His copious body of work -- he wrote or edited more than 500 books and roughly 90,000 letters and postcards -- spanned a myriad of genres ranging from science fiction to history and chemistry. He is perhaps best known for his Foundation and Robot series. His books have been published in 9 of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification. Asimov once said the following, with which I wholeheartedly concur: "Education never ends." So short and sweet, and yet so powerful a statement. I've seen clips on YouTube of many of his interviews. Asimov championed self-learning and fretted that many people cease trying to learn new things once they graduate from high school or college. He foresaw that one day technology would enable people to educate themselves without having to set foot in a school (i.e., the internet). Unfortunately, he did not live to see how the World Wide Web has mad...

In many of my posts, I muse about what life must have been like in the 18th century and express a burning desire to travel back to colonial times. One of the things I can't imagine, though, is living in an era devoid of the technology we've come to rely upon today. Indeed, the internet has revolutionized the world like nothing else. Who would have imagined we'd be availing of it to do so many things -- from buy groceries and find love to speak with friends and family in different corners of the world? But the internet wasn't always as vast as it is today, with more than one billion websites. In fact, on August 6, 1991, British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee published the first-ever website while working at CERN, a physics lab in Switzerland. Appropriately, the site described the Web and how to use it. We should feel blessed to live in a time when technology affords us the opportunity to do things our ancestors could only dream of. You can buy virtually...

Shoppers spent $10.4 billion at stores on Friday. While that may seem like a large number in and of itself, it's a rather tepid showing when you compare it to sales generated a year earlier. In 2014, consumers forked over a more impressive $11.6 billion. Moreover, store sales on Thanksgiving this year fell from just over $2 billion to $1.8 billion. So what's to blame for the drops, exactly? As you can probably predict, consumer behaviorists point to online sales, which jumped 14 percent on Black Friday from 2014. All told, consumers who took to the web for their purchases spent $2.72 billion. Not too shabby, right? And we haven't even gotten to Cyber Monday (Nov. 30), which is hands down the busiest e-commerce day of the year. Perhaps this suggests that people are getting tired of braving the crowds (and the elements) to snag a good sale in person. Reports of people camping out in stores and trampling over others to grab everything from TVs to denim jeans has like...

Everyone and their brother shops at Amazon.com. It is, after all, the biggest Internet-based retailer in the U.S., offering everything from books and apparel to food and jewelry. It turns out that Amazon is now cracking down on people who are posting phony reviews to the site. The latest case involves users of Fiverr.com, an online marketplace where you can take on such "gigs" as writing a news story for $10. Amazon discovered that people were offering to write positive reviews of products they'd never even used, often with text provided by the seller. Sometimes they'd go so far as to receive empty envelopes in the mail to create the illusion that they were receiving shipments of these products. Amazon is suing 1,000 people, but the most bizarre part of the story is that the internet giant doesn't even know their true identities. It has only user names to go by, and the fact these people employed multiple accounts and IP addresses makes it even more diffic...

Thanks to how easy technology has made everything for us, people are becoming lazier and lazier by the minute. At work, people would rather wait five minutes for the elevator than take the stairs. And as I've stressed in some of my other posts, people are relying heavily on technology to do everything from send out wedding invitations to wish people a Happy Birthday. The world has gone digital -- in the process, our relationships with people have grown more impersonal. Traditional Hallmark cards? Written letters sent by mail? These things have gone the way of the dodo bird. While technology certainly has made it possible to do things at the push of a button -- things our ancestors could only dream of -- it has also made us lazy and complacent. I've said it before and I'll say it again here: I think people are spending too much time watching TV and surfing the web. This has contributed in part to what pundits and academics have been saying for years: Society is b...

Most of us would agree that this is an exciting time to be alive. It's the digital age -- one governed by such corporate heavyweights as Apple and Samsung. To be sure, technology is the name of the game in the 21st century. Everyone and his brother has a smart phone or tablet. It's simple, quick, and convenient to find whatever it is you want on the internet -- be it a song, movie, or information for a research paper. Still, it seems many of us can't help but reflect on a much simpler time in our lives -- our childhood -- where we took pleasure in the smallest things. From reading a book to playing tag outside with friends, we had little difficulty finding ways to entertain ourselves. It can certainly be argued that technology makes life a whole lot easier. No need to walk to the library to buy a book or do research. No need to tune into the local radio station to listen to a popular song. The internet can facilitate practically anything these days. So why would som...

A recent study finds that people -- teenagers in particular -- prefer forging and keeping friendships online to doing so in an offline setting. If this doesn't signal that we're living in an almost-purely digital age, I don't know what does. It won't be long before "old school" forms of communication -- writing letters, making phone calls even -- become entirely obsolete. But does this indicate that we, as a society, are becoming more introverted? I don't think so. What it means is that as technology continues to become more advanced, we only become lazier. People want things yesterday. As we become busier, we rely more on technology to get things done as quickly as possible. Buy groceries through Amazon.com and have them delivered to us? Check. Watch movies at home via Netflix without having to set foot in the theater? Check. Set up doctor's appointments online? Done. When it comes to friendships, the internet offers the opportunity to...

If you really think about it, life is truly about resisting temptation. It lurks behind every corner in our present society. It has become far to easy for us to fall into temptation, putting our health and/or relationships at risk. The media, television, advertising, the internet, and technology in general are partly to blame for our being influenced into doing many of these things, but human beings, for their part, are notoriously bad at exercising self-control. Here are a couple of ways people fall are ensnared into temptation: Overeating, or eating too much of those foods they know aren't good for them Drinking in excess Taking illegal drugs Abusing prescription drugs Becoming addicted to pornography Spending money recklessly Gambling without restraint Engaging in extramarital affairs An uncontrollable urge to sleep with hookers Far too many of us continue to do things we know aren't good for us in the long run and get in trouble with friends, family, partner...

In this day and age of such rapid technological change, anyone who still utters the words "I'm bored" deserves, at the very least, a slap on the wrists. I think our ancestors would be turning in their graves at such a pronouncement considering all that technology has made possible. In their lifetime, all they could really look forward to were leisurely pursuits like reading and writing (my personal favorite even now), knitting, and storytelling. Our generation, on the other hand, has the internet, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, Apple, Amazon -- you name it. Sometimes we definitely take what we have for granted. Back in colonial times, people had to ride a horse for days of not weeks just to reach another city -- let alone a different state. There's so much we can do nowadays, whether or not we avail of the latest technology. Charities could always use another pair of hands. Cities everywhere are teeming with parks, gyms, shopping centers, movie theater ...

My last post centered on how the internet can keep some of us much more entertained than others. Those who are not big on "things" -- the internet, books, and so on -- turn to people to keep them engaged. Why is this? Well, it has to do with two key factors: 1. Our personality 2. Our interests As I have mentioned in prior posts, extroverts direct their energy outward and thrive on social interaction, while introverts direct their energy inward and feel at their best while engaging in solitary activities like reading and writing. What's more, we don't all share the same interests. Many people couldn't care less about blogs, message boards, books, or Facebook. While some have remained reluctant to embrace technology, others don't use the internet as frequently because, well, they'd rather be bantering about in person. The internet can keep me entertained for hours and hours on end, but I realize some people would get flat-out bored after a whi...

The world has become increasingly digital. Nowadays, we can do almost anything online, from paying bills to shopping to finding a date for the weekend. There's concern among a growing number of people, however, that the internet is turning a lot of us into technology-dependent hermits. I think these claims are unfounded. I spend a lot of time online, but I do it because I actually enjoy communicating with people in written form. (I am, after all, a writer.) From writing posts on Blogger to actively contributing to various message boards, there are several reasons why being in cyberspace is more appealing than the "real world": You can remain anonymous: No need to worry about people judging you or knowing where you live You can share your feelings freely: I find it's sometimes easier to open up to strangers on the internet than to people in person. After all, some of those topics may be personal in nature.  You can do so many things in the comfort of your home...

As we hit our 30s and 40s, life becomes only more and more complicated. From juggling multiple jobs to maintaining a household and raising children, some of us have little time left over for anything else -- and that especially includes friendships. Thankfully, the internet has made it intuitive not only to keep in touch with people we know in person, but to forge "web" friendships with individuals all over the globe at the push of a button. The question is, can friendships forged in cyberspace be as fulfilling as the in-person kind? To me, it's an emphatic yes. I don't believe that you have to physically be with someone in person to establish a connection with him or her. After all, even after you befriend someone in person -- say, in school or at work -- don't the phone and internet account for a huge chunk of the time you spend talking to one another anyway? I find it's easier to strike conversations online -- and, consequently, go on to forge fri...

Few things have revolutionized the world in the 20th and 21st centuries like the internet has. As consumers, we depend on the internet for everything from buying groceries to making doctor's appointments. Have you ever imagined what life without the internet would be like? If the internet weren't around, We would not be able to buy gifts, groceries and other consumer goods on sites like Amazon and arrange to have them delivered in a day or two There would be no online banking, necessitating a trip or call to the bank every so often Many of us would not be in relationships or married since a good percentage of us first met our partner online We wouldn't be able to communicate with friends and family members via email, blogs, Facebook or other social media Companies would not be able to sell their products online - (can you imagine how much lower their profits would be?) There would be no iTunes or YouTube There would be little to do via our mobile devices other ...

In this day and age -- where technology reigns supreme and people have a dizzying array of options at their disposal when it comes to leisure and entertainment -- people still complain of being bored. This is just mind boggling! Can you imagine what people who lived in colonial times -- when the George Washingtons and Thomas Jeffersons of the world made front page news -- would be saying? These people had little else to look forward to but reading, writing, farming, and storytelling. They corresponded by mail and had to wait months for a response. They'd probably give their right arms to be able to live in this era of smart phones, tablets, Facebook, and Amazon shopping. It's amazing that people could still feel bored when there's so much to do thanks to technology, including: Web surfing and shopping Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other streaming services Reading, whether the conventional way or using devices like the Kindle Interacting with friends via text or soc...