What the heck do we use the internet for anyway
February 24, 2009
I stuck within the same family as I set out to do my interviews. I chose my boyfriend’s family as his mom, Toni and grandmother, Gigi, are so close. With my three interviewees lined up, I set out to find out what the heck people use the internet for.
Daniel, my boyfriend, age 31, uses the internet with the most variety. He reads the news, buys books, looks up his favorite musicians for album release dates, obsessively checks his grades online, emails his friends, has a MySpace that is now defunct and looks up directions. “I don’t even think about the internet as something special, I take it for granted. I get mad when it’s slow.” This anger, I’ll have you know, is interestingly similar to road rage. Toni, age 56, uses the internet often, though without the variety. “Oh I email, instant message Kody,” her stepson who lives in Florida, “Sometimes I’ll look something up online, see what’s on sale at Macy’s.” Her mother, Gigi, recently had Toni set the internet up on her computer. Toni will tell you this was disaster. Gigi now has the internet. “I have the internet. I just don’t use it very much. I do like to play dominos on it, but that’s about it.”
Out of the three, I would say Toni is most comfortable communicating on the internet, as this is her primary use. Daniel, although he emails on occasion, doesn’t communicate on the internet. “I have that watch website I look at, but I never post on it. Those guys travel around Europe and drop money on watches I wish I had for rent. What do I have to say compared to them?” He has been faithfully reading this website for years, he has favorite people who post even, but he doesn’t feel comfortable contributing, still. Gigi does not use the internet for communicating and Toni does not wish to teach her. “You should’ve seen how long it took me to set it up for her,” Toni groaned, “She kept asking all these questions about it. What is it? How does it work? Where does it all come from? I finally said ‘Mom, even if I knew, I wouldn’t explain it to you.”
What do they think of the internet…what do I think of the internet…
Daniel, like me, has reached a point where we both remember what life was like without the internet while simultaneously not able to imagine life without it. Toni likes the internet, but could live without it. “My phone though, I don’t think I could live with my phone.” Gigi says she doesn’t need the internet to play dominos. She doesn’t really like the internet. She might have Toni get rid of it. (Toni will not be happy to hear this.)
Postman discusses the vocabulary shift that occurred in November 1998. This, he remarks, began the use of words such as “virus” in regards to computers. Describing the computer in such humanistic ways builds up the importance of the computer. By using the same words you’d use to describe your sick child to describe your computer, an emotional undercurrent begins developing between human and computer. I know I treat my computer in such a way. I even go as far to describe its “moods.” Computers are only as important as we make them. We could collectively turn them off, throw them into a landfill and be done with it, but we chose not to. Why? Do they make life easier? They have embedded themselves so far into our culture it would quite an undertaking to dig them out. Gigi would have no problem throwing her computer away. Toni, in using it to connect with people, would have a harder time throwing it out. Daniel and I both would have tremendous difficulty throwing it away, not only because of entertainment, but because we both use the computer for school and work. Perhaps we could, perhaps we could toss them out. But could Daniel’s eight year old daughter? She doesn’t know a life without both extensive use of computers and internet. As the generations go by, it become harder and harder to do without computers and the fact we can’t do away with them could be quite destructive if we don’t change their importance. We created them, but can we take them back?
