Older and Interactive

As Barbara Warnick argues in Rhetoric Online, the world is quickly changing and adjusting as new media forms come into general use. In her book, she suggests that critics of rhetoric should adopt new methods of critiquing when faced with rhetoric online, because the nature of rhetoric online is so different from that found in traditional media. New kinds of rhetoric is only one small example of the vast amounts ways digital technologies is changing our world. As digital technology becomes more and more available to the masses, we are in turn forced to adapt to them and learn to use them. In this essay I will show my own progression in how I interact with the digital culture. To accomplish this, I will share three stages in my life in hopes to illustrate the dramatic change I have undergone. First I will share my exposure to television and music as a little child, then my obsession with video games as a youth, and finally my recent discovery of academic and social opportunities available in the digital world.

As the age of five, digital culture was already a big part of my life, though I did not realize this. To use Sally J. McMillan's terms, my interaction with digital technology at that time was almost completely “user-to-system” (75). What I mean by this is that, for the most part, digital technology was used solely as entertainment. When I was bored, I would sit on my couch and watch my favorite cartoons. I would also enjoy listening to songs on the radio. This was the limit to the digital culture that I was exposed to at the time. Though these two mediums—the television and radio—I had no meaningful dialogue with the system or other users. The system, however, had much influence on me. Television instilled in me a love for Kellogg's cereals and superheroes, because this is what I was exposed to. McMillan says that user-to-system interactivity means that the system “will 'present' information to learners who will respond to that information” (75). I did respond to this information. I had superheroes on my clothes, lunch boxes and bed sheets. I ate Kellogg's cereal. What I was seeing on TV was affecting my reality and shaping my character. The same can be said about music. I used to enjoy dancing to my favorite songs in the living room, something my mother enjoyed very much. One can say that this exposure to television and the radio helped me to discover my interests and helped me to become comfortable around digital technologies.

As I grew, I found that I was invited by the digital culture to interact with it in fun ways. With my discovery of video games as a youth, my digital experience changed drastically. I no longer was satisfied with absorbing the digital culture, but I wanted to contribute to the entertainment I was receiving. Video games allowed me to do just that. Games such as “Zelda: The Ocarina of Time” allowed me to plunge into a new world and to go on adventures that are impossible otherwise. Unlike cartoons who's plot is pre-determined and fixed, video games gave me the power to make the characters do what I wanted them to do. If I wanted Link (The main character in “Zelda”) to ride his horse around for hours, I could make him do it. If I wanted him to practice his bow-fighting skills, I could certainly do that as well. In retrospect, this was a giant leap in my online experience. No longer was digital technology only influencing me, but now my interests were affecting how the main characters acted in their respective video games. On the other hand, despite my progression in digital interactivity, I still limited myself to entertainment as digital technology's primary use. I had access to the internet at the time, but online experience often was limited to finding cheat codes for the video games I played.

As you can see, though I did have some progression in my interaction with the digital culture from boy to youth, it was not very significant. It has only been in recent years that I have tapped into many of the uses available on the World Wide Web. Digital technology went from being purely entertainment to helping me with my academic and social life. Learning to use search engines effectively has afforded me new methods of finding information that would take me much longer to find in the Library or elsewhere. I have been able to e-mail drafts of essays to my professors before the due date in order for them to review and critique them, helping me to get better final grades. Also, I can keep in touch with virtually all of my friends through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. The interactivity I experience now is not only user-to-system, but also user-to-user. Just today, I had a meaningful conversation with my brother who lives in Barcelona through Instant Messaging. I also get onto Facebook and look at pictures of events my friends have been going to. In short, my experience with digital technology is a lot more sophisticated.

In conclusion, you can see that my use of the digital culture has changed greatly throughout my life and has gone from a recipient mentality, to a user and contributor mentality. I was able to tap deeper into the potential of what these technologies offer. Needless to say, I still have much to learn in this regard. If I were to take computer programing classes and learn more about how things work on the Web, that would open so many doors for me! I Would be able to create my own websites, write my own programs, and if I wanted to, I could even learn how to steal peoples' identities on the Web! The possibilities are endless and, as Warnick argues in Rhetoric Online, we need to adapt quickly.