Week Six: Ages of the Internet

For the first generation I decided to interview my boyfriend. He is twenty three years old and spends hours on the internet. He spends a lot of his time looking for new songs by his favorite artists. His favorite music is regeatton and that genre isn’t particularly popular in the United States so he looks for a lot of songs of that sort online. Secondly he spends a lot of his time in front of the computer looking for cloths. He is pretty picky in what he wears and usually likes higher end designers and brands. He has an obsession with shoes and likes for them to be unique in their design and color. It’s hard to find that kind of stuff around town and so he browses different sites to find what he likes. All of my boyfriend’s family lives in Chile and so he never gets to see them. I know that he writes his mom ocassinally and his brother who is in Argentina right now almost every day. This is really the only way he can stay in touch with them without spending a tone of money. He also spends time chatting with his buddies on Facebook or MSN about weekend plans, girls, sports, and really anything they have on their minds. In addition he stays in touch with what is going on in the news in Chile by reading their newspapers and watching the T.V. broadcasts over the internet. My boyfriend has no trouble finding his way around the internet. I don’t think he’s ever asked anyone for help, but that is the same I think for anyone his age. He says that when he spends a whole day without a computer he is so bored and feels like he has no idea what is going on in the world. He feels lonely, which I find funny that not having internet access can have that affect on people, but not uncommon. When a tool such as a computer has such power to do so many things for you, you become attached to it and dependent on it a way. I feel much the same about my cell phone. Probably because I have internet access on it and I make calls and text from it as well.
I interviewed my mom for the second generation. She says that during the past few years she has learned how to manage a lot of her finances over the computer. She pays most of her bills over the computer now and does online banking which she says is very convenient and helpful at times. When she needs to transfer money from one account to another she just logs in and it only takes her a few minutes. She likes it because it leaves her from making trips to the bank and more time to spend with my stepdad and six year old son. She has also recently created Facebook account which my sisters and I have gradually helped her learn how to use. She hardly ever posts anything and rarely gets on it but she says she wanted one to keep in touch with her daughters. My sisters and I all live apart and I am the only one that lives close. We are all over 21 and have different lives so she says it’s a way for her to stay connected to us and see what we are up to because she knows that we post regularly. She also likes that she can see our pictures. She uses email to connect with her brother who lives in Texas and with my sister who lives in Arizona. She can easily browse the web when she needs to find an answer to something, for example she told me she needed to find the recipe on how to make a roast. She likes the usefulness of the internet and she says it doesn’t bother her that society is pushing promotes thing the use of this kind of technology. What she told me was that you can make what you want of it. It is a choice to use the internet to accomplish tasks and if it’s something that you don’t like to use then you don’t have to. She still balances her checkbook every week and she still sends checks and letters in the mail for some things. She uses both, the old way and the new way of doing things. She says that the way she uses the internet has affected her life for the better. She has no addictions to it and said that she would be sad if she didn’t have a computer or internet connection at home and that’s it’s worth paying for because of how it simplifies and makes other areas of her life easier.

For the last age group I Interviewed my grandpa who is a native of Mexico and comes to visit family during the summer so he can spend time with his grandkids. He is sixty five and when I asked him what he thought about the internet and if he used it at all he said he doesn’t even know how to use a cell phone much less a computer. He wasn’t bitter about it he just laughed and said there was no way he could ever learn how to use a one. I can understand where he’s coming from. He grew up in a house that had no electricity and in a town who shared one phone. He has worked in the sugar cane fields all his life and technology is something that he is unfamiliar with much less computers and the internet. When I asked him how it had affected his life he said it hadn’t. Since he never started using it in the first place his life has stayed exactly the same. When he wants to pay his bills he drives directly to the place and either pays cash or with check. Most recently he has been using his debit card although at first he was cautious about it. He isn’t comfortable using the computer because there are so many steps and so many clicks of a button to get to where you need to go. Secondly he says he doesn’t know how to type so he rather just send something in the mail or deliver it himself. He is a sweet old man and I don’t blame him. His understanding and upbringing simply make the internet something far too complex for him. He sticks to the old ways and if that works for him.
I think it’s harder for our older generations to move towards computer technology because they grew up in a world where hard work and durable goods sustained the economy. The shift from that to an information seeking and technology advancing society is quite large and the gap is far too big for people such as my grandpa to close. I can understand why our older generation struggles with adapting and learning how to use the internet. It can be complicated and hard for someone who has no tech skills whatsoever. When I think of how my sisters, my boyfriend, and even my mom grew up, it was so different then my grandpa’s. Background and upbringing I think play such a big part in how you use the internet and computer as an adult. In our book it talks about how CMC contributes to innovation and communicating new ideas. For people like my grandpa, communicating new ideas would come from face to face interaction with friends, family, and people in general, not over a computerized social system. This is just one example I could think of from the book that is a clear distinction on a younger generations use and view of technology vs. the older generations use of technology. I am sure that there are older people who do get online, I just don’t know many, and they are few compared to the other age groups.