In the days when computer screens were the size of microwaves, the internet was an outsider. It was a long-distance friend we called up for advice, disentangled from the center of our struggle. It was an encyclopedia, digitized and condensed into a memory chip. It was anonymity, separated from us by a glass screen.
Things have changed in big ways. The World Wide Web is a part of us, swimming among us, absorbing our lives as it grows. Did Suzie and Joe have a fight? Did they break up? Let’s check Facebook. Molly couldn’t have been out shopping last night like she said – I saw her check in at the pub. That cute girl on Tinder? I Googled her. She graduated in 1998 – she’s way old.
The net doesn’t only shape our lives today; it is an integral part of our lives. The lungs to our heart, the foot to our toes. It lives in our pockets. We take it everywhere. In a world revolving around URLs and 4G speeds, what happens when the power goes out? Do we take a moment to see the pink flowers in the yard, not in a digital file on sale on a stock photography site? Do we find that there are still parts of us inexplicable in a social media profile blurb, inaccessible by the click of a mouse? Do we sit down and really talk, deprived of our high-tech communication tools that demand from us sentiments of only 140 characters or less? Do we become purely raw human beings, all over again? Or are we forever changed, for better or worse?