(re-post)For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with my computer; i.e. I love it, it hates me. I’ve never been able to explain this strange phenomenon. Perhaps I emit anti-analog/digital pheromones that render CPU’s unable to function properly in my presence thus causing a cataclysmic sequence of events that leaves me feeling defeated and frustrated. Perhaps it’s because I’m the prototypical hapless unwitting consumer whose instruction manuals are always in Greek. Or - and I love Ellen - but perhaps it’s just, well, gay. Whatever the case, much to my dismay, over the years I’ve witnessed our relationship dwindling into one less of congenial mutualism and more of doomed resignation – with sentiments similar to those of a squabbling disinclined couple forced by circumstance to begrudgingly reside in close quarters for an extended period of time.
Personal grievances asides, I am willing to tolerate the more than occasional jam, fizzle, freeze, fade, blink, breakdown, misquote, data loss, lapse, and requisite parts replacement all for the convenience of shopping, paying bills, and banking from the comfort of my home. We can also thank this technology for the hermit world we now live in where phone calls, letters, and tangible forms of communication have become all but obsolete. Thanks to dot coms and other technological advances, personal interaction has been replaced by IM’s, emails, virtual Latif’s, texts, wall posts, pokes, prods, punctuation marks and expressive emoticons that convey our sentiments for us. Our generation’s modus operandi of conveying information has evolved enough to even encourage advocacy of proper etiquette classes. It can be especially difficult for novices to navigate a potential minefield using only syntax but no facial expressions, gestures, and tones of voice to clarify meanings. Such etiquette can be especially handy when surfing networking sites such as myspace, facebook, and friendster. These sites provide an alternate method of socializing that requires little physical effort but allows members to interact and keep in touch on an online forum. If one isn’t cautious and disciplined however, these sites can have an unhealthy potential for proselytizing unsuspecting members.
It starts out innocently enough. Randomly checking email one day, you notice a friend’s invitation to join, say, facebook. Disregarding it as junkmail, you check the box and click delete. A few weeks later you receive another invite to join. Slightly annoyed but interest mildly piqued, you skim the email cursorily but again delete it; social networking sites are for hermits who have no life, and you of course do. Promptly thereafter, you receive three more invites to join. In disbelief, you realize one of the invites is from your next-door-neighbor’s friend’s brother’s roommate whom you met briefly at a holiday party four years ago, and who also just happened to be a contender for People’s Smexiest Man Alive last year. After a moment’s hesitation, you lose the internal battle being waged. It can’t be that bad, you reassure yourself. Mentally bracing yourself, you take the plunge and sign up.
Through various friend finder tools and friend requests, you soon discover 1,438 friends you know well, barely, or not at all. Soon, you find yourself immersed in other people’s lives: who is engaged, married, and divorced; who has a baby, a baby mama, and baby daddy (or both); who graduated valedictorian, barely graduated, and who flunked high school and is now a waiter at Applebee’s. You discover your ex-crush knows the sister of your best friend’s wife’s cousin’s neighbor, and they are now married, with children. Thanks to extended network visibility, you now know your freshman year archnemesis flunked medical school and now sells cars at the local Carmax. Barely suppressing a grin, you make a mental note to pay him a visit sometime. Then, you happen to notice your bff’s almost-but-not-quite-yet fiancé’s inappropriate, risqué comments on another girl’s profile. And then you see the pictures.. Jeezus Christ, you mumble to yourself, that SOB. This is almost like As The World Turns except you are in a starring role. After brief contemplation, you logout and reach for your cellphone...
And so it begins. Gradually, as you become a seasoned aficionado, you begin making discoveries:
1. You see glamour shots posted of the girl you secretly admired from afar in high school, and find yourself infatuated all over again. Figuring a way past the firewalls, you begin logging into facebook at work, all the while glancing surreptitiously over your shoulder and praying fervently that your supervisor doesn’t stroll past your cubicle at that moment. Oh well… sacrificing your lame job would be worth the five second view of glamour girl’s most recent profile picture updated only six times a day. Before you know it, you find yourself overwhelmed with the urge to view her profile at least twenty times daily, or you are not complete. It's okay; my friend tells me AlAnon proclaims step one is admitting you have a problem. (You would have to google step two, she skipped that session).
2. You begin recognizing in yourself narcissistic, exhibitionist tendencies you never noticed before. Secretly hoping to be the envy of your friends (and frenemies), you rent a maserati and find yourself uploading pictures of you posing in front of the car with your latest prada dangling from your left wrist at sunset on a beach in La Jolla, CA with your newly acquired significant other. Of course, your only intention is to share the pictures with your twice-removed father’s cousin living in the deserts of Nairobi who barely speaks English and only logs on bi-annually to wish you Eid Mubarak, you justify to yourself. If anyone else happens to notice them, (shrug) oh well… at least you tried to change your privacy settings.
3. You soon find yourself planning getaways to exotic locales for the sole purpose of capturing awe-inspiring, travel brochure worthy photos to upload to your page promptly upon your return. You forget to enjoy the trip in the process, but that’s alright. You can always re-live the experience vicariously through your photos. The exclamations your latest album will produce is well-worth the sacrifice.
4. As inspiration strikes, you discover status updates can also be particularly habit-forming. You find yourself fighting the urge to post witty updates on the hour that regale your present frame of mind or the lyrics to a top 20 tune; never mind the fact that your cleverness is actually a source of infinite amusement for friends who are wrestling with the same impulses.
5. You soon begin to realize that a notification or two can also make your heart skip a beat or two. Relax, it’s alright as long as no one else notices. Unless you have several notifications and accordingly, your heart skips several beats and you go into v-tach or exacerbate some other underlying arrhythmia requiring a defribillator and the attention of an emergency response team in which case your story may be considered of interest to CNN producers and ran on the evening segment of ‘No Bias No Bull’ with Campbell Brown. (Was that a run-on sentence? my hs AP English teacher just turned in her grave). But the likelihood of that happening is so slim that you allow yourself to experience a small thrill upon seeing the small red flag in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
6. Your BGE bill is late, two term papers you have yet to start are due tomorrow, and your poor neglected cat is starving. You acknowledge these networking sites are distracting and highly unproductive. Summoning enormous willpower, you decide to deactivate. After doing so, you shutdown the offensive computer and gaze at the blank screen in front of you. Nothing happens. Feeling vastly relieved, you head to the kitchen for a fortifying snack before feeding the cat and beginning research on extracorporeal life support systems from a neonatal perspective.
However, two hours into a mind-numbing analysis of inhaled nitrous oxide versus ECMO for membrane oxygenation in neonates with hypoxic respiratory failure, your ADD kicks in full force and you desperately search for a distraction. Unable to help yourself, you kiss your resolve goodbye and reactivate after a grand total of 3 hours and 46 minutes… so much for self discipline
… and so the dismal saga continues. Ultimately, your once active social life is reduced to the glossy 15” LCD screen of... yes, your computer. But every cloud has a silver lining. At least you can shop, pay bills, and bank from the comfort of your living room by doing little more than lifting a finger. While reading this (if you made it this far), it’s possible you may wonder why much of this is written in second person singular/plural. Well… because it is about you, silly. Me? Hermits and other arthropods don't exist in my world. And even though it is distracting, annoying, exasperating, unable to return my affection, and often simply useless, you can bet your last ferrero rochero I won’t be selling my computer on ebay anytime soon.
