I started this blog post by asking my mom how she thinks I’ve changed since the internet came around. I could talk about the things that I think have changed – the internet has given me access to fandom, I’ve learned a ton of stuff from the ‘net that I might not otherwise know (not all of them good things – we haven’t really addressed the negative aspects of totally open access online, but my parents never could figure out how to instill parental controls faster than I could figure out ways around them…) but I honestly can’t remember a time before I was huddled in front of the family desktop, listening to the BEEEP BEEP WHIIIIIIIR of the dial-up loading. Oh, AOL.

I do remember a time before cell phones, however, but it’s actually hysterical to think about it. I was still dependent on my parents for transportation anyway, so planning ahead was the way of life, instead of my “we’ll figure it out later, call me,” attitude of today. I don’t know how much of the change was just technological access vs. growing up, but it’s a definite attitude shift that happened alongside my gaining a cell phone. So, I suppose that’s a change to take notice of.

IPods are also something that changed me a lot. Before my iPod, I barely listened to music at all, and I was only tentatively buying some CD’s for my CD player. These days, music is an integral part of my life, and my iPod is a huge source of entertainment for me. Youtube always allows me to preview songs before I spend money on them. So, that’s a change that I can trace to technological shift, but again, it happened while I was growing up, and I might have found more music anyway.

Back to my mother didn’t really notice any of that. Her perspective was that technology has made me far less social. She mentioned that I used to spend hours on the family computer, then my own computer, and now on my laptop. Holed up in my room. By myself. And she has a point, I guess. I can be “social” now, without ever leaving the comfort of my room, so why bother? Most of my face-to-face social life happens on Saturdays, when I can’t use the internet at all.

Before the internet was easily available in my house, leisure time was spent either playing actively or reading. I had the best Barbie collection of all my friends, and I played basketball and baseball depending on the season. I also regularly took out a double handful of books from the library every Friday to devour over the course of a week. Again, many of these things might have changed because I am older. But I can tell that the internet has cut directly into my reading time, and probably into my social time as well. How many times has my cell phone rung and I don’t want to pick up because I have 23 tabs open, three videos running, and a paper hovering somewhere in the background and being social just takes more effort? How many times have I chosen not to go out because hauling myself into the city is just more annoying than watching the latest episode of Glee on Hulu?

Of course, I’m more in touch with more distant friends, with my clever usage of facebook, email and skype. But overall, no matter how much I bemoan the fact that these websites are cheap replacements for real interaction, I still end up using them to stay in touch with more local friends. Technology seems to build a lot of barriers between people in some ways, even while it provides outlets for meeting new people through forums and classes. So my mother had a point – from her perspective, I do favor the internet over family interaction whenever I’m home. I argue that I’m doing homework, which I am, but I’m doing it alone, in my room, instead of at the dining room table like I did in the days of notebooks and paper homework.