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Communicating is sometimes hard for me. I don't always like to talk on the phone; I am not very good at expressing myself vocally; I prefer to write things in a letter or a journal or on a post it note. When I was young, my mother used to yell at me and I would just glare at her wordlessly. I am not good with words. If there is a "wrong thing" to say, I may accidentally say it. I take that back, I will probably say it. So I sometimes keep quiet instead.

When I went to college, I received my very first email address from CSU, Sacramento. I had no idea what to do with it. The only people I knew with email addresses were the other students in my classes, and I could just talk to them. Why would I go all the way to the computer lab to email someone that lived right next door to me in the dorms? However, I did go over there to sometimes play solitaire on the computer between classes. Other than that, I didn’t see what all the fuss was about, maybe because there was no fuss.

The first time I went abroad, I lived and worked in France for three months. Every couple of weeks, I would buy a phone card and go and stand on the street at a pay phone and call my parents to let them know that I was okay, where I had been and what I was doing. I sent post cards and letters and beer labels home to my friends. I wrote in my journal and kept a box of scrapbook worthy items (mostly beer labels). There were internet cafes, but they were mostly full of people smoking and drinking coffee in front of empty computer stations. I did have an email address, but I still did not know a lot of people who had emails themselves, nor was using email as a means of communication yet a habit.

I am learning to communicate. I am still not very good at doing it vocally. However, through the means of email, I have learned to ask questions and to ask for help; I have asked people out on lunch dates that I may not have asked before; I have learned things about people that I would not have asked them about. I have made friends that I probably would not have made if I had to pick up the phone and talk to them, not only around the world, but even on a smaller scale such as around the office at work.

Both the internet and I have come very far since the 90s. I did not have that first email address until I was 18. I didn’t really use it until I was 22. And then that was ALL I used the internet for. I didn’t even own my own computer until I was 26. I didn’t need it! I went to the computer lab to study and to write papers and to do research on the internet. Now I use it to find knowledge and different worlds and great people.

The communication lines are now open.

I always wonder if I would be different if I had been a child in a world full of Internet. Would I know more or less? Would I be more outgoing or less? Would I still hand-write Thank You cards or not?

This post is part of the Write on Edge RemembeRED prompt. Today's assignment was:

Many of us remember life before the internet. We wrote letters instead of emails, used encyclopedias instead of Google, and went to parties that weren’t of the Twitter variety. For this week’s prompt, we want you to recall those early memories of being online. Tell us how it impacted your life and what it meant for you. Write about your experience in 600 words or less.



Now tell me -- do YOU remember the days before the internet? When did you get your first email address? When did you actually start to use the internet regularly?