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Lauren Richardson

ENGL 4832 - Davis

October 6, 2011

My Digital Literacy Narrative

A Perspective On A Generation's Relationship With Technology

When I was in fifth grade my family purchased our first computer, our first router, and we got

an America Online account. We were jumping feet first into the technology craze. I remember when

the web and the internet were first starting to make their presence in society. In the early nineties I was

too young to understand the technological movement that was upon the world. In the late nineties

though, I was the perfect age to be to experience and take full advantage of the shift that was occurring.

People were beginning to purchase home computers, and personal routers and computer program

knowledge was becoming more and more prevalent.

As I got off of the bus that day, I remember thinking how exciting it was going to be to have

access to a computer in my own house. I had often visited my dad's office where I would play with

computer programs such as Paint and Word, and I was even in a typing class at my elementary school,

so I would be a natural on the computer, I was sure. (Thinking back, it seems so trivial, a class on

“how to type,” such an inherent skill amongst today's population.) I ran up the hill from the bus stop

and through my back door and into a small room at the back of our house that my dad was converting

into a home office. My dad was on the floor, surrounded by boxes and styrofoam molds and cords and

wires and instruction manuals. The computer didn't come rearing to go as they do today; there was an

entire procedure that needed to take place before the computer would even turn on. The modem had to

be connected to the computer screen which had to be linked to a power source which had to be plugged

into the router, which then had to be connected back to the modem. The 50-page instruction manuel

finally came through though, and late that afternoon was the first time I heard the “ignition” sound of



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my family's first Dell. “Dum-Dum-Dum-Dum” the Intel processor sounded, as a blue screen featuring

the Dell logo flashed and and a black “loading” bar popped up. My entire family was gathered around

our new computer as if we were waiting for it to actually get up and perform for us.

It may as well have been a performance the way the computer screen held our trance. After the

loading bar reached one-hundred percent mark, the home screen appeared and logos of all of the

programs appeared. Paint and Word Processor and Solitaire all scattered the desktop of the computer.

Then, I saw it. The America Online logo popped up, ready for installation. I had heard, from all of my

friends who already had home computers, the joys of instant messaging on America Online. It was

something foreign to me, this ability to use something to immediately connect to all of my friends

without being right there with them. My dad inserted the AOL CD-Rom into the hard drive and we

went through the step-by-step installation process. After we finished, we were able to create screen

names, something I came to understand was my username and was what I would use to gain access to

AOL and all of it's possibilities. MallRat1990 is the screen name that I decided on (of course...). I

named my password after my dog, Buddy. MallRat1990. Buddy. I typed into the main screen of AOL.

Then I heard yet another unfamiliar sound...and not a sound I miss these days: the modem dial-up.

For about five minutes I listened to the the computer modem dial-up, a sound similar to a muted

ambulance siren, as it attempted to gain access to the internet through our home phone line. Then all

the sudden, the sound shut off and there I was: online, on my own screen name, for the first time. A

home screen and my “buddy list” popped up, featuring the days news headlines and latest celebrity

gossip. I pulled out my notebook from class and started adding my friends' screen names to my Buddy

List. Instantly I was chatting with my friends from across town and relatives from across the country.

It was such a bizarre concept and feeling to be conversing with people not in my immediate vicinity.

This is where it all started; the era of connectivity had officially begun.

From that day when I first experienced America Online, the program came out with updates



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seemingly everyday. What started as AOL 1.0 grew to 2.0 and 3.0 and before I could blink it was AOL

7.0. Technology was in constant motion. It could have been about trying to keep up with the wants

and needs of the exceedingly connection-demanding public or perhaps the progression was more about

developers just wanting to push the technological envelope; it is a kind of chicken-egg argument, a

phenomenon deciding which - public relations or technology obsession - came first? By the time I was

in 7th grade, just a matter of a few short years after I had first logged onto AOL as MallRat1990,

connectivity was at a new level. Middle schoolers were begging their parents to get them their own

cellphones, and my school had computer labs in nearly every wing of the building. Teachers began to

post grades onto online forums instead of issuing paper report cards. They began to send emails to

parents as a singular form of communication, in place of take-home folders, and they began to require

homework to be turned in typed. Computers were becoming a necessity for communication.

Fast forward to today. When walking around my campus at The University of Georgia, it is

clear that people are in their own technological worlds. Students walk amongst the buildings, from

class to class, with headphones jammed into their ears. In class, students sit in a trance in front of their

computer screens, typing their notes or surfing the web. If we arrive early to class there is no

introducing ourselves to our neighbor or engaging in casual conversation. Since the beginning of the

technological craze with the advent of home computers, people have begun to put up barriers with

technology; this generation is concerned not with making connections with those around them, but

rather with the next thing, who to talk to next and through what form of communication.

It's remarkable how quickly technology has transformed communication in its entirety. I, since

that day I logged onto AOL for the first time, have had a love-hate relationship with technology. I do

think that technology is a good thing in its ability to connect people from around the country and

around the world. However, I think that technology takes away from face-to-face interaction. In my

opinion, technology has taken the place of personal interaction, something that before the onset of the



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obsession over personal computers and the like, was all that the human race knew. It is important for

the people, for the “techies” that consume this generation in particular, to not become too dependent on

technology and not to make technology our only form of communication amongst each other. In an

article entitled “The Media is the Message,” the author argues that the media through which one

communicates is just as important as the message itself. This is exactly the point I am trying to make:

the power that the way through which people interact is just as important as what they have to say.

We need to use technological mediums such as computers and the web and the internet as

communication aids, not as forms of communication within themselves.

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