Moving Hands

[Visual description: People sit in a cafe while using laptops.]

Computers have become part of mainstream culture. In the late 90s, people thought that the Internet was a fad, but very few people today still think that the Internet is a fad.

In 1994, spending time playing in MUDs, chatting on IRC, and even writing emails were all activities that a fairly small fringe of society participated in. Nowadays, it is the rare person who does not have a Facebook; not having an e-mail address is unthinkable.

However, some people that I’ve encountered are not happy with this state of affairs. They yearn for a time in which we didn’t have all of these Facespace or Myface websites but instead talked to each other in real life. They yearn for a time when we didn’t have our creativity stifled by staring at the screen for hours on end.

Okay, I agree that the Internet is not perfect. Not everyone has equal access to the Internet, and there are inequalities online. This is an issue that I care about. However, most of the critiques that I hear don’t engage these points; instead, they yearn for a “better” time that is long gone.

Honestly, one thing that I really don’t understand about these critiques? When Hearing people talk about being chained to the Internet and feeling like it’s a weak mirror of “actual” social life, it’s not an experience that I can relate to at all.

The thing is, not all of us have the same experience with the Internet. I have spoken before about growing up on the Internet, a space where I was able to understand others for the first time. Later on, when I was trying to figure out my own identity as a queer individual, the Internet was a great resource for meeting others.

In other words, the Internet connects some of us; it doesn’t isolate us.

Plus, these criticisms seem to be about ten years late to the party – people have been talking to each other on the Internet for a long time, and they’ve been using computers for even longer.

Getting back to what I said earlier about inequalities online? Yeah, I think that those are important to talk about. Personally, though, I think that the solution is more integration of the Internet into everybody’s life, not less. But I am open to being wrong on this point – let me know what you think.

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Update, added to this post on 9/26/10: s.e. smith has written a post named My Friends in the Internet. Once again, s.e. smith says something that I wanted to articulate so perfectly that I’m pointing at it and saying, “This. This is what I meant.” (This has happened to me a lot, actually.) smith’s central point in this post is that the hierarchization of the communication methods smacks of ableism – I am in total agreement.
I do want to qualify my previous post about the Internet by saying that I am not an introvert. I thought I was for years, but I’ll talk about that in another post. I am not happy just sitting all by myself, not talking with people. My favorite online activities involve talking with others.
I do prefer talking to people in real life, but I think that this is mostly due to the amount of effort that people give to the interaction – if I meet a friend over a cup of coffee, it’s harder for the friend to ignore me because we’ve both gone to the effort of meeting in real life to hang out. Online, I have some friends who take the communication so lightly that they don’t say “be right back” before leaving for 20 minutes. (If you’re a friend and wondering, “Does this apply to me?” – maybe, but no hard feelings towards you; I still love you.)
Anyway, I really like smith’s blog, This Ain’t Livin’, in general. To be honest, I don’t agree with some of the posts, but that’s the way it is with anybody in this world – I doubt that there are two people in this world who are 100% in agreement about every single issue. It’s a good blog; go check it out.