Yards and metres: August 11, 1997 issue of New Thinking

August 11, 1997 New Thinking:
Yards and metres

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August 11, 1997

Yards and metres

By Gerry McGovern

‘Give him a centimeter and he’ll take a kilometer’ somehow doesn’t seem right. ‘Are you going for a liter’ just doesn’t ring true. And how many of us think of ‘going the extra kilometer’ or saying to a foe, ‘not another centimeter?’

The way we measure and weigh things means more than just weight and measurement. It was in the early Seventies that Ireland officially introduced the metric system, and yet almost thirty years later we still talk about pints of Guinness and miles of distance.

I was quite young when the metric system was introduced and yet I’ve never quite got used to it. I had received just enough education in yards and pints to plant them deep in my mind. Even though road signs now say kilometers, I mentally calculate how many miles there are left to my destination. Because then I can feel the distance. I know what its like and roughly how long it will take to walk or drive a mile but walking/driving a kilometer is still not part of my mental map.

Looking at it logically, you would think that weights and measurements are very logical things. And indeed they are. But when we are first exposed to a way of measuring and seeing things, we take to them. They become an extension of us and even though we use them for practical reasons they represent more to us than simple logic.

All this change that is about us today must surely leave many of us confused and slightly adrift. I know that I could never explain the Internet to my parents. It is simply not within their worldview. They don’t need it, they don’t want it. They are old-fashioned and want to be left that way.

The human being has a most extraordinary capacity to adapt. But it is not a limitless capacity. There is a certain level of new things and new thinking that the average person can take, and no more. Beyond a certain point people become confused, they draw back; maybe even lash out.

The Internet has grown at an unbelievable pace, faster than perhaps any other modern technology. I am certain that the Internet will keep growing and that at some future point it will be a part of most people’s lives. However, I feel that its pace of growth must surely slow sometime soon. The hi-tech people and early adopters will be all onboard. Many ‘average’ citizens will be there, but a large percentage of the general population will see no real reason to make the Internet part of their daily lives.

And of course computers are still difficult to use and far from a plug and play device. And much of the Internet is not nearly as well organized as it should be. For the young and the young in mind that’s a challenge to be overcome. But for the average citizen the Internet is a foreign county, with a new way of measuring and weighing space and time.

The Internet is more than the leap from yards to meters.

Gerry McGovern

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A large percentage of the general population will see no real reason to make the Internet part of their daily lives.