My mother-in-law is spending a couple of weeks with us. I happen to be lucky in the fact that I like my mother-in-law and we get along just fine. She is the definition of old school. She grew up outside of the US and moved here when she was in her late twenties. She is in her sixties now.
She does not have, nor has ever had, cable television. I bought her a CD player and later a DVD player. She has only recently started to use an answering machine. She gets all of her news from the local newscasts on her television. She likes a few shows on TV but does not get to watch them very often because she might be busy when they are on. She gets sucked into the teasers during commercials.
I tried to explain to her that she should quit trusting the media. Whether the station has the same political slant as her is irrelevant. There are numerous instances where the media is just plain wrong.
The fact that we run our lives differently really came into focus when our waffle iron started to flake out on us. It just so happened that my wife had a catalog on the coffee table that had cooking supplies in it. I started to peruse the waffle irons and then when out to the catalogs website.
After determining which one I wanted, I went out to Amazon and checked out the reviews on the particular waffle iron I liked. It just so happened that the one I liked had a major cleaning issue and it was a flaw in the design. Something that could not be fixed. I then began to read what other reviewers had recommended and found that there were waffle irons that I had not considered.
(I'm back... I was showing her some techniques in Zuma!)
Once I figured out which waffle iron to get, I then went to another web site to determine which store had the product at the cheapest price and had it in stock. I went to that web site, ordered the waffle iron, selected 2nd day air, and paid for it.
I turned to her on the couch and told her we would have a new waffle iron day after tomorrow. She was amazed. She didn't even know that I was looking into it. In fact, my wife and I were still discussing the waffle iron. I think the whole transaction took 15 minutes.
The funny thing is that I don't feel that I am using the Internet as efficiently as I could be.