Sure, the advent of deadly accurate forecasting, hour by hour swell models and web cameras at many beaches cuts out the guessing game compared to the old days, so we can be far more efficient with our road trips and sailing time. But conversely, many of us are guilty as charged by allowing our phones and devices to take over our lives with a virtual overload of unnecessary information which distracts us from actually focussing on the real issues and pleasures the world has to offer. Rather than soak up a sunset, chat on the beach or even be out there on the water, how many of us our obsessing ourselves with selfies, Facebook posts and Tweeting in exchange for living the moment? Surely now is the time to get a grip before this situation spirals too far out of control and we end up bogged down in that never ending feed of information being thrown at us every day? Of course the message here is not to ditch new technology completely but rather to embrace it and use it with diligence; there is a right time and a place for the internet, we just have to prioritize our moments and use it wisely. We decided here at Windsurf to recruit a panel of experts – Dr John Skye, Professor Chris Murray, Senior windsurfing research scientist Chris Pressler from continentseven.com and Lord Guy of the Cribb for some varied guidance on both the good and the bad of the internet and the first question we posed was:
WS: What actually is the internet?
Guy Cribb
Internet is communications! On a personal level I consciously make the decision to avoid it. It is easy to absorb more and more from it, but I have been in the fortunate position in Gnarloo, in the Western Australian outback, of having zero internet for two weeks, which is like hitting a reset button on your life. No internet means more time doing other things. It’s like leaping out of bed in the morning and doing something new. But on a business level, the internet globalised INtuition, the windsurfing forums around the world spread the goodness of my coaching and allowed me to have such a life. So without internet, Guy Cribb INtuition could not exist!
Chris Pressler
Technically the internet is hard to explain, but it is quite easy to use. Most of the children use it nowadays, even infants at 18 months scroll for their favourite baby song on YouTube. Just choose your device and favourite browser and then start to explore an infinite parallel world. It can be quite scary. The medium can make people addicted. Or it can become the only medium for answers in daily life. The internet often becomes the doctor, therapist, friend and guidance for wisdom. And that can be dangerous as the answers are often incomplete or incorrect.
Chris Murray
The internet is like, where all the computers in the world are connected together via a wire or Wi-Fi and that makes like a big web shape like a spider or nerves in a brain but the biggest web wraps around world-wide-web.
John Skye
The internet is the most useful thing ever, largely used for wasting huge amounts of time by people like myself. It shares information, which can be correct or incorrect, useful or useless.
Guy Cribb
I answer my emails in airports and on aeroplanes, so the message almost always starts with ‘so sorry for the late response but….’. Other than that I occasionally look at BBC news, classic cars or E-Bay. I only use Facebook to present galleries of images from INtuition courses, for me it is a one way broadcast not a communication, so I often don’t go online for days!
Chris Pressler
Honestly I don’t know. I visit so many different sites each day. At the moment I have the following tabs open: Continentseven, PWA website, Facebook, Google Maps, Leo dictionary, Wikipedia, Webcam Podersdorf and JamieOliver.com because Kerstin and me just cooked the recipe of the day, a Southern Indian vegetable curry. It was actually pretty tasty!
Chris Murray
I spend a lot of time refreshing Facebook, it has become a bit of an addiction. I look at BBC to check the news and Magicseaweed when I am checking forecasts!
John Skye
I wake up, open my eyes and check mails immediately on my phone in bed. Anything important from China needs to be dealt with very early in the morning before they go home. If there is nothing pressing there, I check the BBC news and sport whilst I eat my breakfast. Then more emails throughout the day. Then in the evening whilst Nayra watches some crap Spanish TV I surf pointlessly on my phone reading useless information about unimportant stuff.
