I presented my seminar last night, which is a major project taken off the table. (Of course, I still have to write the follow up paper, but I have my articles and resources and such already, now.) My topic was hard to untangle into a single topic; I ended up calling my presentation "Local and Global community in the age of the internet." It was interesting, because it just wasn’t a linear topic, and the components weren’t linear, which is exactly what the internet is, too, you know? Anyway.
I had posted one of my articles for my classmates to read and comment on before I presented, to just sort of tease the topic, and it was interesting responses — no one else participated in any online communities outside of emailing friends and family, and maybe IMing with them. I definitely felt like I was about to out myself as Total Freak heading into it, but inthe end, I think people were enlightened more than anything.
I started by talking about what community is, exactly, and how social networks have evolved, using an article by Barry Wellman, who talks about social networks used to be place-to-place, you sent mail to someone’s house from your house, or you called a number and asked for a person, whereas now our networks are person-to-person, based laregely on technologies that make it so. We have individual email, phone numbers, etc. (Except my parents, who share an email address, which is really frustrating at this time of year when they both have birthdays, argh.) I can remember having a party line for telephone service until I was probably 7 or 8; our ring was long-short-long, but people ALWAYS listened in (especially 7-8 year old kids) and there was always the picking up the phone to check that it was free to make a call. We have a landline here, so if the phone rings, I might answer it and it’s for Dave, but I spend a few minutes talking to Tom anyway. Caller ID has even changed this, my mom calls ALL the time, so often the phone will ring, and dave will look at it, and hand it to me to answer… person-to-person.
I went from that discussion, to saying "for the last three months or so, the only mail we’ve received that’s not junk or bills, has been gifts for the baby….. from my internet friends." And oh, the jaws dropped. "INTERNET FRIENDS? What if THEY’RE PEDOPHILES?!" was the basic thought, I’m sure. I highlighted a few other internet-friend experiences ("When you get to the city, my doorman has a key for you, let yourself in!" or "Sure, come stay with us and our 4 month old baby, even though we’ve never met in real life!") and then started to explain how my internet friendships have evolved.
That part was interesting, for ME, to try to map it out. I really tried to make a diagram of internet & IRL connections, and I couldn’t do it, because it’s so intertwined in many cases. And thinking of how I got there — I talked about starting (to finish) my undergrad, and being much older thanmy classmates, and then moving to grad school and being much YOUNGER than my classmates, and in both cases, not having many ongoing life experiences happening at the same time as anyone. (Which is just about right; I started at Digs and Dland in summer 2001, and started back at UM in fall 01, so…) Or, how my real life friends have finished having kids, years ago, and I’m just starting, etc. They (like I said, they are all much older than me, for the most part) started to ‘get it,’ at that point, I think. I talked about how when my back was out, my IRL friends were the ones that brought me milkshakes in bed, and my online friends were there for me to ‘talk’ to when no one else was around.
That led into "glocalization," another Wellman word, and I used examples of that — when Muse sent my kids the box of books, and how my global community impacted my local community. Or, starting the bangorbaby blog after helping an internet acquaintance with bangor-specific advice, and realizing it could be a resource for others…. my global community is impacting my local one in that way.
It then diverged into the ‘revenge effects’ of technology, and internet addiction, the signs and solutions, etc… and the best irony ever… we want to switch from Verizon to MidMaine for a cheaper DSL/Landline package, BUT, to do that we have to shut off Verizon DSL before calling MidMaine, and then MM has to get us to sign a paper authorizing that they can provide us DSL. ANYWAY, it apparently means that we’re out of internet for 7-10 days, and I literally was like "SHIT, i can’t do that now, I’m working on my internet community/ internet addiction presentation!" And even after that, trying to figure out 7-10 days that I could live without internet is um, really challenging my psyche. Take my phone, take my tv, but damn! I use the internet for everything! Not just ADL and blogs, but like, BANKING! How will we transfer money in that time, or know if checks have cleared?! It’s really intimidating to think about. Too bad we weren’t going on vacation soon. Or ever.
Throughout the whole presentation there waslots of discussion,and afterwards my prof confided that she had her own online friendships, so she found it really interesting to hear them analyzed in such a way. It was a really good topic for me to do, I think, just based on my own experiences and interests in the way the internet connects people of like minds.
Then, I came home to find my first issue of People Magazine waiting for me, which was part of an unbelievable gift from one of my oldest internet/IRL friends (A six month sub, the perfect nursing magazine, no doubt — when I told Amy, she even freaked out — People is just the best ever, and I have NO SHAME, man) and this morning UPS dropped off a box with a boppy from yet ANOTHER old internet/IRL friend, and man, I am just so blessed to have stumbled across these people, in whatever way that I did. I know that, every day, but to see the widget being welcomed so warmly, too, oh, it just makes me all mushy. Who knew that the cold, hard internet would make me so soft?