Examples of Abstraction in the Real World
The reason we can even use things in this modern world is because of abstraction. No single person could know how everything we use on a daily basis works, much less how they were made in the first place. Like, can one single person know everything about the car they drive, how it works, how to repair it; about the phone they use, how it was developed; the layers in a network request? Hell, how about what happens when you turn on a faucet?
It's a complex world, but because of abstraction, we can deal with it.
Real Examples to help conceptualize abstraction:
A car. You turn a key. Shift. Press a pedal to go and a different one to stop. Same thing for electric. Gas. Diesel. Honda. Ford. Chinese made, Russian, Swedish, US. Turn a wheel to steer. It's all an abstraction. When you steered a house-drawn carriage with reins, there wasn't an abstraction. Now when you steer, there is a lot going on you don't realize.
Elevator. Push a button. No worry about closing doors, are the doors safe enough to re-open if it hits something, and not squish someone. Originally, there was an elevator operator that opened and closed the door, guided the lift to just the right floor, started it slowly, eased it to a comfortable stop. Now, there is no operator. You or some other schmo is in there. The only thing you do, literally, is press a button. The rest just happens. Abstraction.
Faucet, you turn a handle one way, you get cold, another, and it's hot. No worries about water treatment, pipelines, chlorination, water towers, pressure, water heaters (and their safety, and if it's gas or electric and what if it's too hot or starts to rust...); on and on.
In the virtual realm: this blog, or any web site or blog, etc. What software is it running? What operating system? Where is it hosted? What is the IP address? What is the route you have to traverse on the network to find the server? Doesn't matter, it's abstracted away. You follow a link or type in the URL bar. The rest is abstraction.
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