From 3186b91cbfac31c3af8c2d7f6b2173a76bf0d018 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neale Pickett Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2022 11:55:56 -0600 Subject: [PATCH] thoughts about networked computers --- blog/_posts/2022-08-05-my-generation.md | 31 +++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 31 insertions(+) create mode 100644 blog/_posts/2022-08-05-my-generation.md diff --git a/blog/_posts/2022-08-05-my-generation.md b/blog/_posts/2022-08-05-my-generation.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..14f51b1 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/_posts/2022-08-05-my-generation.md @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +--- +title: My (online) Generation +--- + +I've been on this IRC channel (Signal now) for maybe 20 years now, maybe more. +We've wound up having multiple events where we meet in real life, +and I consider them probably my closest friend group; +certainly the people I've stayed in contact with for the longest. + +Today I mentioned to them that I've dialed back how often I read the news, +and how that's really helped me, +and we came to this sort of group consensus that we're pretty atypical. +Like, most Americans are only dimly aware of what was going on in Washington +whereas I have literally lost hair from stress over it. + +What I would consider to be my online generation was online way before anybody else. +Most of us were using modems to dial bulletin boards back in the 1980s. +We remember a time when, in order to get Windows connected to a network, +you had to buy separate software, and it was buggy as hell. +Most of us started using Linux in the early 1990s, +back when only weirdos would consider using Unix for their desktop machine. +It wasn't clear to us that networked computers were ever going to become popular, +and seeing things like Facebook take off seem to us like we were the early pioneers. + +There's a lot more to say about what shaped our world, +but others have probably written about it more clearly. +What I'm trying to point out here is that as the world has begun using the Internet more, +it's probably challenging for us to tease out what "normal" life is anymore. +It's so easy to look at hundreds of millions of people tweeting or posting on Facebook, +and think that represents everybody's day-to-day life, +because networked computers have been our entire existence for decades.