This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by James Robertson. Original Post: reality check on the wired nation Feed Title: Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants Feed URL: http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/rssBlog/rssBlogView.xml Feed Description: James Robertson comments on Cincom Smalltalk, the Smalltalk development community, and IT trends and issues in general. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by James Robertson Latest Posts From Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants

If you work in the software field, it's very easy to think that everyone is computer literate and has good internet access. Then you run across an item like this one in ComputerWorld, and you start to realize that you live in something of a bubble:

Support pilot fish is trying to explain to employees who are not office workers -- and have no computer experience at all -- how to view their new online pay stubs. "The built-in browser for a large Internet provider does not work well with the 'paycheck' Web site," fish reports. "The solution is to leave the ISP logged on and start Internet Explorer. I ask one user to do this, and he reports that Explorer is not installed. I ask, 'This is a Windows machine, right?' His reply: 'I just got it and don't know what is installed.' "

Now, ComputerWorld's SharkTank is playing this for laughs - but it points to something that an awful lot of us forget - there are a lot of people who rarely (if ever) get online. Heck, there are still lots of people who don't have a PC, and have no real interest in one either. For all the talk about the rising influence of the blogosphere, we should keep in mind that a lot of people have never even heard of it. So for all the sturm and drang around the various left/right political blogs - and for all the yelling around things like RSS/Atom - it's important to realize that a significant number of people have no contact with our world... and for the most part, they don't think they are missing anything.