Further consideration

Well this isn't necessarily true. Certainly in my profession I work in a team whose members are located in Auckland, Adelaide and Sydney. We are regularly chatting using Skype and Microsoft Communicator and also regularly meet on the Microsoft Live Meeting format. There is not a day that goes past without the necessity for using any or all of these formats in order to communicate and exchange information. Whenever I want to go anywhere these days I will vet the journey first on Google Earth; recently we were considering purchasing a new house.... Of course we eventually actually went to the property, but beforehand much time was spent viewing it and the surrounding countryside; checking the fire risks and the distance to the nearest town. Indeed the initial contact to the agent was established by means of messaging from the advertising site.
Whenever we are considering purchasing any product, before entering a store we will visit ebay to get a perspective on the market... We have bought our last two cars this way, and we found our existing house 10 years ago on the Web 1.0 Real Estate sites. The new information technology has pervaded our lives to the extent where the new ways of attaining information are actually under the surface, intangible.
There is much fear of a world in which we have very little experience or familiarity. We are both empowered and disempowered by it all. We put up barriers of resistance in order to protect ourselves and our families from the ever encroaching world. Buying a gaming console for your children is fraught with political implications. A wedge is driven between the generations, creating alienation and animosity. However to resist is to deny the opportunity to understand and to make decisions that are informed and analytical.