To Wit:

It’s funny how completely integrated the computer has become in our everyday lives.  Mine was the generation that first got to experience the arrival of the home computer, back when most of us who had one couldn’t do much more than type a letter and play some pretty crappy games.  I remember visiting a friend who had some archaic brand, which was as technologically wonderous then as an iPad is today, and being able to do nothing but actually type letters on the black screen, the letters glowing green trailing behind the cursor.  They didn’t even have Pong.  I was bored within about thirty seconds.

Sometime in the mid- to late-eighties, Mom and Dad bought our first computer.  It was a Tandy, and it was one of the first I can remember that took 3 1/2 “ floppy disks.  It had no modem, and even if it did, the World Wide Web was still in its infancy, and not yet accessible by the mainstream for another few years.  Still, the gaming industry had caught up to the burgeoning market for the personal computer, and I found myself trading with my friends games like Kings Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest (I enjoyed quest games apparently), and some of the more kid-friendly ones like Carmen San Diego, Jeopardy, and Wheel Of Fortune.  In junior high school, I convinced my parents to let me get Leisure Suit Larry, a legendary and infamous game franchise in which the titular character was a swinging bachelor with a raging libido on an adventure to find true ‘love’.  They finally gave in and let me buy it, but only the second edition because it was less controversial than the other titles in the series.  I always wanted to get the third Leisure Suit Larry game:  “Passionate Patty and the Pulsating Pectorals”.  I still have my original copy, but no computer I own or have access to can play it.  I think I sold my cousin the 5 ¼” disks that came with it.  If it was a potential source of income, I would try to exploit it.  I would have sold the Chihuahua if I could have gotten away with it.

Computers were little more than fancy word processors and sophisticated gaming consoles before the advent of the internet.  I was not living at home when Mom and Dad upgraded their computer to one that could access the ‘net’, but in the fall of ’93, when I started university, I had regular access to the internet for the first time.  Most of my closest friends were also making the same discovery, and within days, we were talking via email to each other.  Those few of us who didn’t have their own email were begging to use someone else’s account to keep in the loop.  I can’t remember how email worked back then, how you accessed it, or what the screen even looked like.  I remember being able to find information about my hobbies, printing out everything from song lyrics to corny jokes on dot-matrix paper.  I recently found a folder full of all sorts of junk like that among my university keepsakes.  Most of them I tossed away.  Of course, I kept a few, being the archivist I am.

Within that first year, a few of my acquaintances began to spend an awful lot of time in the computer lab.  There was a small room in the basement of the Edmund Casey building at St. Thomas, and if you were able to get inside before they locked the doors at 11pm, you could stay as long as you wanted.  You just wouldn’t be able to get back in if you left.  My friends, and a few others that shared their passion for the internet chat groups, would stay overnight, jabbering away online with their early social-media peers from various corners of the world.  What they had found online were people just like them:  people who were slowly forsaking the real world for a person they had never actually met in person, and for all they knew, might not even be whom they claimed.  At least they were happy, I suppose.  Or were they?

Fast forward a generation.  In the years since those fledgling days, computers drew more and more of us into their social network.  There was ICQ and MSN Messenger, neither of which I fell for, the memory of my awkward friends becoming specters in shadowy basement computer labs fresh in my mind.  MySpace and YouTube began to pick up steam as the millennium turned.  The term ‘social media’ was probably being used by people in the know, but it wasn’t until the advent of Facebook that the general public really began to understand how vital the concept had become.  ICQ was about as obsolete as the telegraph by the time Facebook started to spread, exponentially until it seemed like within a few months, just about everyone was on board. 

I was at a friend’s wedding reception when some of my friends from back home, the same ones that I used to email with such enthusiasm about fifteen years before, convinced me to give Facebook a try.  It was the spring of 2007.  I was skeptical.  I wanted to believe that I would never attach myself to some lifeless electronic box, and for sure I would never forsake real life contact for strictly digital communication.  I had long since lost contact with those old acquaintances from back in the day.  I remember when one of them had met a ‘friend’ online and they began dating.  She even paid his bus fare to visit from the US.  When he arrived, she was less than enthused.  The parameters of the relationship had changed.  Suddenly, she had to actually talk to him live in person.  He stayed for a few days before he quietly went back to wherever his console was plugged in.  Maybe they got along better that way.  I remember feeling sorry for the both of them. 

People warned me that it was addictive.  I scoffed at them.  Addictive?  Coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, gambling—now those were real addictions.  Who lets themselves get hooked on computers?  No logic in the world could convince me.  I told people I would check in on Facebook every week or so, just to say hi and then be on my way.  Within days, I was completely taken.  Before Facebook was riddled with useless games and applications, I was immediately drawn to the instant connection I had found with people I had long lost to either time or distance, or often both.  Within a span of a few short weeks, I was using my Facebook as my primary means of communication.  I can count on one hand how often I’ve called some of my friends since 2007, although I may speak to some of them daily online.  In some instances, I can see that some of my relationships have strengthened due to the new technology.  In some, I can see that it has regressed, or in some cases, dried up completely. 

We would have been foolish to think that the advance in social media would have stopped with Facebook.  There are dozens of them now.  I opened a Twitter account about four years ago, because everyone was predicting that it was going to be even better than Facebook.  I signed up, then sat back, unsure what to do next.  I ‘followed’ a few friends, some of my longest-standing Facebook-ers to start with, then found myself completely bored.  I was away from Twitter for about six months when I decided to check in.  Somehow, I was being followed by several people I didn’t know.  They must find me a boring guy to follow, since I hadn’t tweeted in months.  I logged out and haven’t checked it since.  I’ve long since forgotten my password.

I’ve dabbled in Edmodo (the Facebook for teachers), Pinterest, and Google Plus in recent months.  They’re all fine, I suppose, but Facebook remains my primary distraction.  You can use Linkedin or Instagram, depending on what you want to do online these days.  There are social media sites that are only popular overseas, and you have to believe the next big thing is already starting to take off as you read this.  I was browsing MySpace the other day, and couldn’t believe how archaic it had become.  Even Facebook isn’t the same anymore.  It isn’t just for the young anymore; parents and grandparents, now more adept at technology are logging in, and are still enjoying the honeymoon stage I was experiencing in 2007/08.  Because parents are now able to peer in on the kids, Facebook is reportedly not cool anymore.  It occurs to me that I am a parent, with children on the verge of having Facebook accounts of their own.  Will they be the first to skip Facebook altogether, pioneers of their own digital indulgences?

I’ve been thinking of giving Twitter another go ‘round.  I could just launch a new profile and start fresh, especially since so many more people use it now, and it can be used for so many more purposes.  Still, the thought of following celebrities I don’t care much about makes me cringe.  Why should I have to update my status on two different sites now?  Instagram is no good to me since I don’t take many pictures.  Which technology should I pursue?  It’s like trying to decide which gaming system I should buy.

In regards to game systems, I could get a Wii, an X-Box, or a PS3.  My kids have a Wii, but apart from that, I prefer none of the above.  When I want to play a game, I go back to the tried and tested option, my good old fashioned board games.  They don’t need an expensive computer, but they do need people to be present, in the flesh.  You have to make the effort to coordinate them, but when they come together, there is nothing quite like the social aspect you can only get from a good board game.

Maybe I should apply this logic to my social media.  These days, I’m so entwined in Facebook, I can barely stand to use the phone anymore.  Why does it feel like picking up the phone is like rereading the old instruction manual of a long-forgotten board game?  Maybe the solution is to buy an old dial-tone phone again.   What differs from my generation to the current one, it seems, is that mine remembers how to read the manual, while this one isn’t aware of the existence of the game itself, let alone how it was played.  One thing that remains is that we still have a choice.  If you’d like to set up a game sometime, give me a call.  I can’t promise I’ll call you back.  #leisuresuitlarry