Country life
THE WEB AND IT ’ S IMPACT ON ISLAND LIFE
By Sam Biles , Managing Director of country Estate Agents Biles and co
“ How lucky we are to live on the Island ” is something that is often said by local residents but as we move further into the 21st Century there are some aspects of Island life that are becoming more challenging .
Examples often cited are education , travel costs / frequency of ferries , rates of pay and problems with deliveries across the Solent . Youth sports teams struggle to play mainland competitors because of the difficulties and costs of travel involved in fixtures . It can be argued though , that a lot of the activities such as sport and shopping that took up so much time 20-40 years ago are now streamlined by the online world . Perhaps no-one yet realises how much the internet is impacting upon us and the Island in particular . On the one hand it makes buying goods so much easier . A quick search on Amazon and excitinglooking parcels arrive the next day . This is wonderful – or is it ? The consequences for local businesses are significant and can impact disastrously upon the already-suffering High Streets . The web also means that people get their entertainment in different ways – the ability to catch up with television programmes on the iplayer or to watch programmes on demand must surely be pushing up the hours spent in front of ‘ the box ’. On one hand this seems to be leading to a generation of less active teenagers , but they will have wonderful reaction times and IT skills developed on their X-Boxes . If we need to do or make something new these days there are often tens of YouTube videos on how to do it . In the summer my children built an outdoor brick , wood-fired pizza oven from scratch , all from YouTube – it works brilliantly . If kids can chat to a group of friends online then there is no need to make the effort to meet them . One national paper recently stated that declining teenage pregnancies were because boyfriends and girlfriends communicate online rather than in person . What will the technological changes do to the provision of healthcare on the Island ? As treatments become more and more complex and costly will they be located more and more onto the mainland thereby depleting local services ? Will diagnosis be webbased ? One thing is for certain , that the spiralling costs of the NHS and the ever ageing population – particularly here on the Island - will require great changes to be made .
Education must be of the greatest concern – the general problems in coastal areas are well-known but this is exacerbated by being an Island . With the greater availability of knowledge online inevitably the emphasis is changing from what is learned to techniques of problem-solving and ways of working . This makes inspirational teaching all the more important and attracting high calibre teaching professionals to the Island may be the biggest challenge of all . It is so important that we get education right if our children and young people on this side of the Solent are to effectively unlock the opportunities of the online world and not to become victims of its disadvantages . www . visitilife . com 71