I can still remember the first time I used the joke about how wi-fi had become so critical to Teenagers that it was now their number one need above food and shelter etc.
Rewrite Maslow’s Hierarchy, we said!
So who’s laughing now? We are renting a cottage in the English countryside where the internet connection is shared amongst the four rentals on the site. When we arrived, we found that only one of us could get a wi-fi connection at any one time. We had to share it around, synchronise our use to endeavour to keep hold of the precious link. For the next two days it was OK; we even managed three connections at times!
But this morning, nothing. (I am tethered to my phone as I write this – thank you Apple!)
I suddenly have an image of holiday-makers rushing to the sun-loungers early in the morning with their towels in order to ‘reserve’ them for the day… It feels a bit like that. Thank goodness I copied the drafts I’m working on to my Mac locally.
So, yes, it is harder for our teenagers who act as if they’ve had a limb cut off – but we oldies feel it too. And more than I’d like to admit…
Ian Gouge - Writer 