I haven’t read anything recent by her and wonder how she would interpret it now with the knowledge of the internet… I tend to think that the codification of patriarchy exists as much if not more in the digital world than in the flesh and blood world.
…..

I’d miss the only journal I’ve kept without fail.

Kyla, that blew my mind. and made me realize that no matter how integrated i am with my technology, my literacies will always be print-first…in the sense that that is what i see as primary or foundational. for the next generation, even that will be different…which i suppose IS that kind of significant shift that some of the pundits like to go on about. so maybe i’m wrong about them not being Other. except KayTar hardly seems like something out of a Bradbury story.

I met my husband ONLINE at age 13. We flirted and dated online. Now we chat about dinner over Facebook while he’s at work.

I email my pediatrician. I send her photos of the kid’s conditions (N’s rash, K’s staph infections, ect). I email her to let her know K is having an episode.

I’m more likely to email ANYONE than talk to them over the telephone (who can use a telephone with kids around?). I’m terrible at keeping in touch with people I can’t contact with via the computer, which means I’m closer to many online friends than the 3 dimensional kind. Schedules just never match up anymore…it can be 6+ months before I am able to see a friend. This doesn’t even tackle blogging or Twitter.

As dependent as I am on this technology, my kids will be more so. They can’t believe we didn’t ALWAYS have the Internet, or that there was a time before EVERYONE had cell phones. K and I were looking at a textbook the other day and she said, “WOW! It is like a computer where you turn the pages!”

Cyborgs? Yes, we are.

how many of you are writing tweets or posts in your head as you go about your lovely mundane days, even your fully unplugged days?

to me, that is being cyborg.

I work 3 days/wk telecommuting via computer and never once thought of myself as a cyborg. Ghost has come to mind, though!

i am caught in between. love hate. dark light. eternally the exhibitionist wallflower.

But what I’d miss the most is the blogs: the connections I’m just beginning to form; the perspectives I may not have considered; the more eloquent renditions of thoughts I have; recognising pieces of me in another; keeping alive parts of who I am when there is noone nearby in my daily life who shares those parts.

I would, of course, adapt and adjust. I may go out more again, even though I find it requires Herculian efforts with a toddler and baby, and conversations are so broken that it often feels pointless. But online is available when I am – the random moments here and there.

As for presenting avatars, is this not what we do to some extent IRL? I have ‘known’ some people for decades and never gotten past their avatar. Others have opened a window to their soul from the first time we met. It is like that, too, online. Undoubtedly, nuances are missed, the ever-informative body language is absent. But the words we write give indication of some aspect of who we really are. It may not be all of who we are, but that does not make it any less real.