A writer returns to his hometown — once isolated, now connected — to conduct an experiment and answer the unanswerable

Source: The Internet Really Has Changed Everything. Here’s the Proof. — Backchannel

Lovely piece about growing up in a very small town. I related a lot. My school was a little bigger–we did have a newspaper and some AP classes–but everything else was the same. I was in high school before I met my first black person. The only radio stations were country and classic rock. It was a Big Deal when our town got a McDonald’s. We didn’t have the Internet but we did have cable, which was a lifeline for some of us. (I remember staying up late to watch 120 Minutes on MTV and seeing videos by XTC and the Breeders.) I wonder if the lives of high school kids in Lagrange have changed as much as the those in Napoleon…