Interviews

For my 18-35 generation I interviewed my best friend. She is curretnly 21. Her primary uses for the internet include facebook and myspace, as well as emailing, job searching, and other methods of keeping in touch with friend such as skype or oovoo. Skype and oovoo are web chat programs that you can download from the internet and video chat with. She is very confortable with using the internet to communicate. She is your typical young adult that uses virtual communities and communities like facebook and myspace to communicate. She feels the same way alot of us probably do, that we rely on the internet for so many things. She feels she would be lost without the internet and her life would be so much harder. She gave me an example. She told me previously that she was looking for a job. She said that without the internet it would have been way harder to geta job because the job she was applying for was quite a drive away. If it wasn't for the internet she would number one not have found the job, and number two have had to drive their to fill out an application. The internet makes it easy for us to find jobs and submit a resume or application. Also as further discussed in lecture, we become naturally accustomed tot he order of things. I feel this is true and is why we fall accustomed to relying on technology to do a lot of our work for us.

For my 36-60 generation I interviewed my mother. She is currently 45. She said he primary uses for the internet is banking. She banks online to check her balances, make tansfers and many other things. She doe snot use the internet much. She is a very old fashioned kind of woman. Whenthe intenet became more and more widely used, she did not follow the trend. She does not feel comfortable coomunicating over the internet. She said she does not even use email. I believe he only because I have never even emailed my mom a picture before. I know how old fashioned she is. She uses her phone to communicate or face to face conversation. She thinks the internet is very useful and understands why it is so widely used, but does not prefer to use it. My mom is a simple person, and she says the internet is too complicated. We use the internet like it is nothing new, but some of our parents generation have fallen out of the loop as far as knwowing how to use technology. I know my mom is not that old to the point where she cannot use the internet, but I think she can she just doesn't want to and finds no need to unless she has to.

For my 61 and up generation I interviewed my grandmother. She is prett much on the same page as my mother, after all, she is my mom's mom. It makes sense. But she said she never uses the internet. She does not do anything on the computer at all. She and my grandfather never used the internet. They payed bills by delivering them or mailing them, they communicate by phone, and they have no other need to use the internet. So it is a given that she does not communicate over the internet, but she said that if she did use the internet for other things she would still probably not communicate with it she would still use the phone. She thinks young people these days misuse the internet and abuse it. She undertsands that kids have homework and research to do on the internet, but as for everything else she does not see the big fuss about the internet.

From comparing the three generations, it is obvious that the more recent the generation the more vigorous internet use. This trend is parallel with when the internet began to be popular. The internet was not really around in our grandparents generation. Our parents saw the beginnings of the internet, and our generation saw the popularity of the internet. I remember when I was trying t use my father's computer when he had dial up because that was all that was offered. I remember how long it would take. I would harly use the internet because it took so long. Once I got my first computer I was always on there. By the time I got my first computer the internet was faster. But the internet has been growing steadily and rapidly sinse it first started. With the rate at which the internet and other technologies have taken over the different parts of our lives, it would be safe to assume that more technologies are coming and will be at a rapid pace. I have always wondered if and when we willreach that day when technology has taken over to the point of where humans are fat and lazy,as portrayed in Wall-E. In the movie, humans have relied on technology so long they have become lazy too the point where they float around on mobile units because they are not even able to walk. I am scared for the day this may come due to our current reliance on technology. As discussed in the Postman lecture, “In a technopoly, we tend to believe that only through the autonomy of techniques (and machinery) can we achieve our goals” (p. 142)." We are becoming so reliant on technology that one day it may surpass us and we may find ourselves more reliant on technology then we want to be.