As technology, despite my greatest attempts, forces me to approach my life differently almost every day, I often like to sit down and re-establish what is truly making things better and what really is just wasting my time. For example I see all these teenagers of 13 and 14 with flashy cell phones and the knowledge of how to use them. I think back to how only ten years ago when pagers were just as popular as cell phones are today. Immediately after that thought I remembered how I was one of those teenagers who didn’t have a pager and nor did most of my friends. A few of my friends did have pagers, but as I look back I remember not really needing one. I had a little black book of sorts that fit nicely in my wallet where I kept all my contacts phone numbers. If I needed to make a phone call I would use my house phone or a pay phone, which was readily available, provided you had a quarter. In contrast to today it seems to have been more difficult to reach out to people, but I do not remember any feelings that seem to have impeded my ability in this regard.
The reason I even bring this up is as an example of how technology is constantly changing the way in which humans exist. The internet is an even more relevant example of how technology is quickly changing many facets of society. It’s amazing to look at how quickly things have evolved. Remember dial-up? After having high speed internet I think I would rather die than have to wait for a page to load that slowly. I wouldn’t even dare to imagine how long I would be waiting, unable to receive phone calls, if I tried to download a large video or audio file. Interestingly, this is the first moment that it appeared that I would actually need a cell phone. But thanks to technology fast information exchange is now the standard on the binary highway. But, now it seems that this highway is becoming jammed up with electronic rubberneckers, who instead of using the internet as a way to raise the level of society towards a utopia, they have spammed themselves into an internet traffic jam with no relief in sight.
Like millions of others who frequent the internet I have fallen into the virtual world of online socializing, that is Myspace. The way in which I came across this website was in the same way that I come across most of the things that I don’t need. Through others saying that they “just can’t believe I don’t have one”. Then the question is annoyingly followed by the comment, “you should really get one, it’s so cool.” As if my coolness took a nose dive because I was out with friends instead of leaving messages about we need to hang out more.
And that’s how it went with Myspace. My sister a student at Loyola University in Baltimore was the culprit this time. So after much nagging about the subject of why I should have a Myspace I finally gave in and decided to join this online populace.
I sat down one evening at my computer the summer before leaving for the University of Maryland in Baltimore County and began to see what the whole fuss was about. I typed myspace.com into the address bar on my browser and was whisked away on the binary bi-way of 1’s and 0’s to the Myspace page. I was greeted with colorful writing welcoming me to Myspace. There also were small thumb nail pictures of “cool new people” who had just joined the community. There were a few advertisements among the text and pictures, but as a frequent internet user I had become accustomed to such things and paid them no more than a brief look over. The homepage intrigued me. It seemed benign, exciting and my intrigue was certainly raised. I clicked on the link that said browse. I was planning on finding my sisters profile to really see what this Myspace was all about. Directly after clicking on the link, I was taken to a screen that prompted me that I needed to be logged in to look at other peoples profiles. Realizing that I needed to actually create an account I began by submitting my e-mail address and choosing a password. Once I could properly log in, I was taken through a series of prompts letting me fill in information about myself so those who view my profile can see who I am. I found the experience to be exciting. The way in which the site was built seemed to be very interesting and I was excited about the possibility of making new connections with people. After handling the basic setup I decided to try the browsing option again.
I decided to search the community for UMBC students, since I was very close to actually being part of that community in the real world. I wanted to see what the student body consisted of and maybe even find people that I would like to meet personally. To my surprise a large number of profiles came back after my initial search. I thought it was great. I mean here I am, in New York and I already am able to get a feel for who I would be attending the University with. My excitement was really peaked at this point. I clicked on the first profile of a girl whose headline name was “Eye Candy” and began to check out the profile. I was really blown away. Her page looked nothing like mine. She had music and a cool background and graphic affects that really made her page pop. As the first few waves of excitement passed I began to feel a little like I did prior to having a Myspace profile; left out. I had a profile, but it looked quite boring in comparison to “Eye Candy’s” and my sister’s profile as well. So while part of the community finally, I still felt like the freshman on the first day of high school waiting for some beefy looking senior to stuff me in my locker. I was still an outsider. I decide that I needed to add some flavor to my profile and over the course of the next few weeks I tweaked and tailored my page to what I thought was good representation me, as an on-line community member. I also began trying to make friends by sending messages to those whose profiles I found interesting and to my surprise some actually responded. At this point I was completely sold on the idea of Myspace. I thought to myself, “wow, what a wonderful concept”. And I had fun too. Searching and browsing, seeing who was out there in Myspace land. I was fully prepared to ride the Myspace bandwagon all the way and for the next months I most certainly did.
Flashing forward a year, I still had my profile however, I had revamped it a few times and it looked quite different from when I first began participating in the community. By this time I had established a base network of Myspace socialites and was enjoying posting photos and comments on people’s profiles. I was even able to find friends with whom I had not spoken with in a few years and was actually able to re-establish some very valuable friendships that I had thought were lost forever.
One day after class I sat down at my computer like I always did to check my Myspace, e-mail and my Facebook profile (Myspace for students). I had a message in my inbox on my Myspace and I like I always did I opened it, excited about the possibilities of the message. My excitement was quickly halted because as soon as I clicked on the message I unleashed, according to my computer wiz roommate, “the nastiest virus he had ever seen.” I’m and not exaggerating. The Geek Squad couldn’t even fix this one. My computer was so screwed up that I actually had to purchase a new one. Needless to say I was quite pissed off.
I deleted my profile and vowed never to use Myspace again. But who am I kidding. I’m a social butterfly at heart and can’t let the opportunity of meeting new people slip by me. With a new sense of awareness I created a new profile and began to re-establish my network of friends. It was a bad experience, but I’m not one to let one bad experience rain on my parade. I’m going to keep right on marching. And so I did.
Another year has passed and my march has turned to a crawl at best. Whatever magic Myspace compelled me with has certainly worn off. Where I used to spend a few hours on the web site, I now only spend a few minutes and that is just to check my messages or to see if I have any new friend requests. If no, I quickly hit the x tab on my browser and move on to more important things. Like life.
And that’s how things are. It reminds me of an article that I read saying this Myspace community was a passing fad that will fizzle out as quickly as it flared up. I would have to agree. I remember friends’ profiles that used to change quite regularly. Now these same pages haven’t been altered in months, much like my profile. I am not quite sure exactly why others have began to use Myspace less and less, but for me it is definitely because the luster has left. The excitement is just not there. I almost feel as if the others who use Myspace have found the next new cool thing to play around with and forgot to send me the memo. In either case I’m not too concerned. I have a huge amount of things to occupy my mind and Myspace has fallen into the genre of a passing fad for me, as I imagine it has for many of its users. Where I used to get messages from friends is now filled with messages from porn websites and fake profiles and I just don’t have the desire to leave messages on people’s pages anymore. If I want to talk to someone I’ll call them on my cell phone. If I didn’t have a cell phone I’d call them on my house phone. No problem.
Basically what I’m trying to say is that like the cell phone or the pager before that, technology is great at making things more convenient. However, as soon as the fresh paint begins to fade a little our society quickly tries to find the next new cool thing to replace it with. This string of fads seems like progress towards something good, but I think they are detours on the path to what’s really important. Forget the glitz and glamour for a second. Don’t worry about keeping up with technology. It’s impossible. Most importantly do not let these things define you. I would still be cool without a cell phone. I just wouldn’t be able to tell everyone right then and there. I would have to find a payphone. It’s natural to let fads wash over you and to enjoy the benefits of. I certainly do, but once that fad has ran its course the goal is to still be standing with the integrity of a strong tree whose roots run too deep to be washed away in the flood. That is what is important.
