I once knew my way around computers and the cyberworld. I bought an Apple Macintosh the day they went on the market. Superbowl Sunday, 1984—I went down to the new Mac store, which opened at halftime, was their first customer… I was stunned at how much text I could store on a 3.5-inch floppy (so much more power than my Brother 8400 word processor.) A few weeks later, I helped design, install, and facilitate the Macintosh writing lab at Colorado State University.
I could dive under the hood of any Mac and transform the critter into a supercharged beast—hardware and software.
Today, I don’t know squat.
I do know this: the cyberworld has gotten scary. Too many people who surf the internet want to do harm—the reason I left Facebook in December. I don’t like big corporations digging into my data to sell to other corporations, which then feed me a bunch of advertising trash on every web site I visit, and which also load up my email inbox with junk.
I got back on a few weeks ago, because I did my homework and got up to speed with the latest web browsers, and which ones offer ways to keep my data relatively more secure than other web browsers.
Some browsers keep soaking in the cookies, even after I’ve reset and cleared my cache. It was weird, cleaning out the program, and then watching links pop into the data box before I could navigate to a different preference setting.
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I am stunned at how Facebook has become more than just a household name. For many, it has become the main occupation of the home computer—and the work computer. For most, it is a daily routine. For too many, it’s a lonely way of life.
I feel sorry for the folks who continually post what they’re doing at any given moment, and who finally log off with, “Well, need to go to bed. See ya’ll tomorrow.”
I don’t have the time. After perusing the blogs which I follow, I’ve spent plenty of time on the internet. I prefer the blogsphere to Facebook. And for the past month I’ve spent far too much time downloading copies of ancient alchemy and occult texts, which I’m using as research for my novel.
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As much as I hate the internet, I also love it. Other than reading blogs, I scour web sites for research resources. I do not trust Wikipedia. Unfortunately, most every web site I visit for research has the Facebook mentality. They want money. So, I drop a few bucks into their coffers, and I get to peruse the archives of e-texts at a particular university.
I don’t think I could count as high as the number of documents that have been scanned since I bought my first Mac in 1984.
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When I deleted my Facebook account, which really never went away, no matter how much I tried, I swore I wouldn’t get back on. I lied, because the U.S. is going digital—newspapers, magazines, books, all the things I love to hold in my hands.
This time around, though, I want to see if I can get Facebook to work for me. Instead of two hundred eighty-three “friends,” I want to see if I can drum up some business. It’s a Friday night, and I’m at home writing a blog entry. I’m a musician. I should be playing a gig… not playing on the computer.
(Made up that word for the title. I have no idea what I want it to mean.)
Making the internet work for a person with a product to sell is the real question. For me Facebook is just a place to drop some photos of the family (which I don't do in the blogs) and therefore I keep my list there to people I trust. I have tried a page there for my writing but have no idea how to get people to find it. Where I get requests to add non-friends to my regular facebook page, the other one only has a few from my facebook friends as nobody else knows or cares that it exists. Would it sell books anyway? debatable.
ReplyDeleteI've put out info on my writing on other internet sites but not all the ones I am told I should. I think I'd go nuts. I have twitter and drop something there off and on but who reads twitter? I don't read hardly any of those I supposedly follow and doubt they read mine. Some have so many twitter followers, how could they? Then I got into pinterest which is a natural for me with the photography but whether it will sell books, I don't know. I try to stick to what doesn't take a lot of time because as you said, I just can't see spending a day writing on any of those sites. I did chat rooms when I first got online and found out how that didn't work for me. Some are using the sites now that way and maybe it does for them. I don't see how it can sell a product.
From a comment on Dales blog's "Old English is the only foreign language I know how to speak and read." is that really the case? And if so why?
ReplyDeleteAs for the internet, well, I will refrain from launching into the lecture on the Bad Guys, I try hard to leave them behind when I leave the office! Suffice to say I have left no Facebook footprints...
@Julia. It is true. Old English is the only foreign language I know. I forgot my German and Old Gaelic. I used to teach Chaucer, Shakespeare, and medieval lit classes.
ReplyDeleteFor all of the internet's purported possibilities, it still seems to fall short when it comes to the concrete.
ReplyDeleteI recently spent six months looking for a nursing job after graduating. All major hospitals in my area wanted electronic applications, but the only interviews I got were from acquaintances and face-to-face contacts.
For all of the hype of an open society being facilitated by the "democracy" and transparency of the internet, it seems to have become just another barricade to hide behind, another layer of potential alienation. As you put it, "a lonely way of life."
I've also quit arguing on Facebook or attempting to have discussions on it. It's just not designed for that. In that respect, I miss the discussion rooms that listed things by thread. C'est la vie.