Waste of time?

Growing up in the Arab World (different parts), with the little technology availble there and then, I tried my level best to get information from wherever. But the language was the barrier; so little was available in Arabic, even in terms of magazines and books, forget internet since the dial-up connection was more torturous than pulling teeth. But even then, we, from that part of the world, knew more than alot of the new world folks did. However, our tidbits were generic and not up-to-date.

Chattin with a friend I grew up with not too long, I was shell-shocked, when he told our years in the Arab world were a waste of time (he is in Europe now). His argument was that we did not learn any foreign language to a perfection, we were isolated in terms of information (its dissemination is very slow).

What to do? I guess we do need to catch up with the supersonic speed of the rest of the world; put more emphasis on teaching foreign languages, have high-speed internet (for self-learning purposes). I know for a fact if I had to browse with dial-up again, I'd spare my nerves the agony.