Where was that again?
Over the years I've learned that many more people than I might have guessed actually
think that the internet has a front door, and that it's MSN.com. There was a time
when I thought that people didn't change their home page because they didn't know
how, but I've come quite close to the conclusion that the reason they don't do
this is that they don't know that it's possible - not in the sense that it's a
complicated operation, but that it's something that goes against the logic of
the internet. Since people "enter" the web, it makes sense that they
do so from the entrance, and entrances aren't the sort of thing you change.
Even when their main entrance has been changed, however, it would appear that
many of these people still think that they have to enter the web in a set manner.
Numerous times I've seen people exit their browsers after clicking from one site
to another and to another, in order to then open it up again and click over to
somewhere else. These people may understand my attempts to explain that any page
is accessible from any other page, either via a link, a bookmark, a simple search,
or by typing a URL into the address bar, but understanding is one thing, acting
upon that understanding is another. The lesson simply doesn't stick. Even though
these people seem comfortable clicking from page to page while pursuing a particular
subject they've decided they want to pursue, when they reach "the end"
of that subject, they seem to feel a need to start over - to close the browser
in order to open it up again anew.
Go to: Inventing wheels in cyberspace.