Sometimes I wonder how we ever lived without the internet. It literally came in like a storm and took control of our universe. Can you imagine our world without the internet?
And cell phones. I was hooked in an instant and unfortunately still am. Anyone remember roaming charges? I would literally rack up $1,000 almost every month overusing it for both personal and business reasons. I’m in front of my phone speaking, texting, emailing or researching more hours than I ever imagined or that I’d like to admit.
I can take pictures. I can exchange wonderful messages of love with my children and grandchildren. I can work 24/7 and be constantly connected to my favorite life form: humans. I can get a constant stream of news virtually within seconds of it happening. I can find out if the Eagles won or if the Phillies made any trades. And how about what the stock market is up to?
I can go to The Morning Call obituary site and find out what incredible Lehigh Valley person has unfortunately passed. With my watch, I can tell you my heart rate anytime I want. I can check my blood oxygen. I can get an EKG with a touch of my finger. Oh, did I mention that I can tell you how well I’m sleeping? Really!? Now, I’ve gotta work on being a better sleeper?
But you know what I can’t get? The incredible emotion that goes with receiving a letter or correspondence that you have to patiently wait for. I remember spending a lot of time at the playground when I was in my early teens. I remember one girl in particular I was friendly with. We would often talk, and I guess you could say flirt a bit. She told me she was going to Atlantic City with her parents for a week’s vacation. About four days after she left, I received a beautiful card in the mail with a picture of an incredible horse diving into the ocean at Steel Pier. On the back was a message from her that ended with, “Miss you, see you soon.” Are you kidding me, miss me? See me soon! I was walking on a cloud for at least a month. Those are the kind of memories you can’t put a price tag on. By the way, we’re still very good friends to this day.
My uncle used to say, “The idle mind is the devil’s workshop.” I’m starting to wonder most recently if the rarely idle mind is the devil’s workshop. Whatever happened to taking time to dream, time to drift, time to pray, or time to pick up a good old magazine or newspaper and feel those beautiful, crisp pages on your fingertips?
When I was younger, I was a reader. That didn’t mean that it translated into me being a good student. What I read had little to no depth. At least, that’s what I thought. It turns out that those newspapers, magazines, and comic books packed more knowledge than I gave them credit for.
In my jam-packed household, there were many wonderful publications of knowledge. Being an ADHD guy, I loved the pictures and the easy reading of Life and Look magazines. They were large publications and told me what was going on in the world. I couldn’t get enough of Sports Illustrated. My brothers and I loved sports, and the pictures and stories of athletes we idolized were coveted in our house. As for my hard-working dad, he would rise early. Once he was out the door, I would have The Morning Call all to myself. It was right on the sports page where I dove into a world of batting averages, standings and who won the night before.
On the lighter side, I would devour Archie comic books and of course one of my favorites for a short attention span like mine was Reader’s Digest. And lastly, I’ll throw in the all-important TV Guide. I’d study that paperback-sized miracle dreaming of what I would be watching in the coming week.
I talked about my not being very studious, but it turns out as a young boy from both Life and Look magazines, I learned that there was a bigger world than Allentown. The playful, comedic world of Archie Comics taught me about socialization and the short episodes actually translated to my universe at Raub Junior High School.
Readers Digest taught me about kindness, and the many uplifting stories showed me optimism will overcome pessimism. Sports Illustrated showed me that hard work could translate into real success and even fame. The creative genius of Mad magazine taught me, in an odd way, of something I treasure: Self-deprecating humor. Self-deprecation can be a gift. A gift to not take yourself so damn seriously.
We gained so much with the internet, but maybe we lost a lot also. Oh, don’t get me wrong. We couldn’t live without it, but I’m not so sure life in the end is all that better with it. I mean, I could always get the news if I turned on the old-school a.m. radio station and was patient until news at “the top of hour,” as they would say.
I could get the national perspective if I was willing to wait until the morning, the dinner hour, or my dad’s favorite, the 11 o’clock news with Philly’s own John Facenda. My dad had so much faith in that guy and trusted his every word.
Newscasters back then told you, to the best of their ability, what was really happening, not only what you wanted to hear. Verified, fact-based information was their goal. They weren’t the story like so many are today. The story was the story. Their opinion didn’t matter. What mattered was accuracy.
One thing the internet or my phone will never do is replace the human touch. I do a lot of my professional work around meetings. I thoroughly enjoy a breakfast or lunch meeting where I’m building a face-to-face relationship. I’m not talking about some wasted-time, nonsense session. But at the end of a fully engaged meeting, I’ll know what you like, what you’ve been through, what wonderful joy you’ve had in life, or what incredible challenges you had to endure. We would produce a meaningful bond that endures both professionally and personally.
I don’t do social media. Don’t get me wrong, I’m bouncing off humans or information more than I’d like at times. But as for social media, count me out. The last thing this already too-busy space between my ears needs is more noisy consternation.
If I have something important to say, I want to say it to your face. Most of what I wanna tell you would be uplifting. I’m not too good in the bad news department. I have little to no use for some of the meanness that I’m told goes on in the internet world. I’m sticking with the 100-year-old great philosopher Dick Van Dyke, who says that total avoidance of anger and hate is his key to longevity.
So, let me be clear. The advances we’ve made are hugely beneficial to our ability to communicate quickly and remotely have brought great advantages. But, if you have a great idea, you wanna run something by someone, or you’d like to share some challenge in your life, I’m your guy. We’ll have lunch and look across from each other eye to eye, and after an hour, something special just might happen. It’s called bonding, and it means a lot. I’ve seen it produce a lot.
So, if you wanna talk, if you wanna laugh, if you wanna cry, or maybe just wanna complain, like I said, I’m your guy. We’re gonna do some old-school bonding, and we need more of it now more than ever. Do we ever!
This is a contributed opinion column. Tony Iannelli is the president and CEO of the Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached at tonyi@lehighvalleychamber.org.
https://www.mcall.com/2025/12/07/talking-business-with-tony-iannelli-life-before-the-internet/
