Technology Narrative

We’re always immersed in technology, since every tool we’ve used in daily life, from a spoon to a search engine, is a form of technology. However, when technology comes to mind, I usually think of cell phones and satellites and that computer that mechanics say is inside my car. Not the car itself but the computer inside it. Strange.

My first memorable experience with technology was with video games. For one of my first birthdays, I received the Nintendo. I remember thinking that the monsters in the video game could actually jump out of the screen and that I’d have to stomp my feet on them.

As I got older, books and video games competed for my attention. I remember my mom getting mad all the time that I spent playing video games and tried to get me out playing and reading. Video games started to become really repetitive and I always felt this desire to create for some reason, so reading and writing fiction took up more and more of my time and I mostly abandoned technology.

Eventually my family bought a computer that was fast enough that I felt motivated to log on to it. It was a novelty at first. I played around with the programs a little to see how they worked. I learned to type well enough that started writing stories in Microsoft Word. But I remember how hard it was to be creative on a computer as opposed to using a notebook. So I ended up transcribing what I wrote from a notebook to a computer.

The Internet seemed boring. At first, the dialup took too long until we hooked up DSL and the Google search engine and other search engines weren’t as accurate as they are now. I was into Karate at the time and wasn’t able to find the information I wanted to learn about Karate, so I didn’t pay attention to the Internet until late high school.

Like a lot of people, I got sucked into the Internet by peer pressure. Friends would say, “what’s your screenname/email address/Myspace,” and were annoyed when I didn’t have one. I was reluctant to spend any time on the Internet until I discovered a website called DeviantArt that specialized in sharing artwork and writing. In short time, I became addicted to uploading writing and artwork, looking at the works of other users and communicating with like-minded art lovers.

At that point I realized two things:

1. The Internet is constantly in the process of developing
2. There’s something on the Internet for everyone and it’s only a matter of time before you stumble upon it.

Since then, the Internet has served as tool for social interaction, research (on scholarly databases of course… and some Wikipedia), and Entertainment.

Well, it’s been more than that. The Internet has helped me go to school. A few years ago I was trying to pay for school at Panera, a restaurant. Such a task is difficult with today’s high cost of living. I was burning through my savings very quickly and I started taking more hours at the restaurant. Taking more hours made it difficult to also put enough time into schoolwork and the balancing act was very challenging at times.

Then suddenly it dawned on me. Most of my life I had worked on my writing skills and the Internet was overloaded with text. There had to be some professional writers creating these texts. While I could have searched for a professional writing position at a local newspaper, finding writing work on the Internet seemed so much easier. I discovered that very often, behind much of the content on the web were armies of writers hired by web developers to write content that would attract readership and get their websites highly ranked on Google, thus increasing traffic to their websites. Since then, I have been attending school and paying tuition by writing a lot of content for the Internet. I’ve become pretty plugged in.

In the meantime, I’ve discovered more and more stimulating sources on the web. I’ve found podcasts that I listen to regularly, such a psychology-oriented podcast by Dr. David Van Nuys of Sonoma State University. I not only read articles from websites such as ScienceDaily for stimulating news but I also spend my breaks often reading humorous websites. These diversions were once a problem while also trying to keep up with school and work, but I’ve developed will power that has allowed me to resist distractions when I need to work.

Overall, I have developed a technocrat bias. I see that technology has dramatically increased efficiency and freed up computer users from many time consuming tasks such as filing away information in a filing cabinet and digging it up again at a later date. But a part of me also understands some of the consequences that technology can hold, such as increasing anger in day-to-day communications. For myself, I wonder if there are any consequences to spending so much time on the Internet. Since becoming 100% financially independent, moving into an apartment and paying all bills through the creation of web content, my time on the Internet has become unavoidably long every day. Despite sometimes feeling burned out by technology, I still have strong and growing optimism about the various innovations that help keep life stimulating and that unlock new potential.