Narrative: How Digital Culture Spilled Into My Life

Hands up if you remember the mono color green-screened IBM computers? This was the first computer I can actually remember in my life—and I hated it. All the way back in Kindergarten, there was this new curious ‘computer time’ slot in the schedule which ironically took up the time normally used to play with toys. And it involved these green monstrosities. I found all of the programs boring and too simple. Some kind of math game. Something about a duck? I didn’t care. In fact, I sometimes opted to just stay back in the classroom and play with the toys instead.

Fast-forward to 1996, my dad purchases a windows 95 computer and installs…games! As the original Nintendo had already proven the enjoyment to be had by pixilated representations of an alternative reality, this wasn’t a mind boggling experience—playing games on the computer. But the thing that really made it stand out was how much more true to life it was; the images were more realistic, there was a soundtrack that was comparable to a good quality CD of the day, not just some random blips and beeps that were meant to imitate music. No. This was different. I was hooked and played wildly. But this didn’t last long.

Eventually, something dangerously addictive and much better captured my attention. Yes, I mean the inglorious Sega Saturn that few ever owned. I guess that makes me special. Maybe you had a different experience with that system, but I loved it. There was a game featuring a toy solider who held a huge key that he used as a weapon to defeat enemies and advance in the level, this game was more fun than even the original super Mario on the Nintendo we had briefly owned previously.

Needless to say, my ‘digital life’ wasn’t very vibrant at this point in my life. I even tried to improve my typing skills by failing a basic typing class offered in middle school (consequently the only class I have ever failed!). The internet for me was limited to Netscape Navigator at school strictly for school projects. And at home we had dial-up internet, however it was exclusive for my dad to be able to check his email and some other business-related items. In fact, because of this, the internet was intimidating to me, with the alienating dial-up tone, and text everywhere. It seemed like something designated only for adults that kids weren’t allowed to ever touch unless the computers were lined up in neat rows at school with a teacher watching. Besides, all computers could do anyway was run games like SimCity and Dreamweaver.

As game consoles improved, I found on the internet ‘cheat codes’ that could be input into the games to add additional playing elements and even make the game easier to play. While perusing cheat codes one day, I stumbled across a gaming‘forum’ and moreover, it had a ‘chat’ feature. Now, I’m not an avid gamer, and probably never will be, but the social aspect of it enthralled me. What did ‘lol’ and ‘XD’ mean? Who am I even talking to in this chat? These people really share my same esoteric interests? I found myself wanting to be on the internet more and more, the internet transforming into something more approachable, even useful.

I found other forums that catered to my interests, the most influential being a car audio forum. I found myself going online during class sometimes in high school so I could check back on my posts, and reply to any new ones. This led to my post count reaching an excess of ten-thousand unique posts. In nearly any forum that is a significant amount of posts, and before I had achieved it, only thought those with no social life could accomplish such an ostensibly silly feat. Perhaps I’ve demonstrated my lack of social life?

Of course the online time did not cease there, people started linking me to other sites; I found ebay, where I was online constantly to monitor the sales of broken electronics that I could purchase and fix. Incredibly, I ended up with more than forty broken car stereos. And the know-how obtained to fix them was all snatched from the internet as well. Eventually I found my interests expanding to reparation of all sorts of consumer electronics as the car audio forum was just a subsection of a bigger consumer electronics forum.

Learning so much about computers and electronics online led to my first job as an electronics technician where I repaired computers almost exclusively. What’s more is I had no formal education with fixing computers, it was all learned from the online realm. The older technicians where I worked had all obtained some type of technical certification as a means of proof that they were knowledgeable in their respective areas (televisions, DVD players, camcorders). I soon realized as well, that many people that repair computers professionally often have no formal technical education; it is almost solely experience based. And many solutions to computer problems can be found, as you’ve probably guessed, online. For the first time, my digital escapades had culminated to producing money!

Returning home from a full-time mission, things on the online world hadn’t changed much. The only thing that really seems to have changed is I created a facebook account due to perilous amounts of peer pressure. Facebook initially seemed useless, one just updates the status of their life, and others observe. But the checking of other’s lives, digital-stalking if you will, seems to be an enticing way of spending my time, and others seem to agree. Just ask the student on their laptop in the back of class. I must admit, I am grateful to facebook, though, as I have a way of communicating with those I taught in Russia, and it has been an excellent tool for organizing get-togethers with my friends. Indeed, ‘real life’ events seem more and more influenced by what happens online. It’s an interesting balance. Should we be scared?