Connected: An Internet Love Story

The first thing I do in the morning when I wake up is go to my computer, turn on Tweetdeck and see if anyone has mentioned me @nathnjackson or sent me direct messages, or has even retweeted my brilliant messages sometime during the night.

I used to stumble into the bathroom and then slap some coffee into a mug while letting my dog out of her kennel.  Now all that takes second place to checking my online status.  I feel so disconnected when I don't have Internet access.  If my computer is not available or if there is no Wi-Fi in whatever backwoods, Podunk store or town I am in I take out my smart phone and complain.

Now, I wouldn't say I was addicted to the Internet because I can stop anytime.  I really can.  I can stop right now if I wanted to, but then you wouldn't get to see the ending of this post.  I do this for you, dear reader, not for my own pleasure.

So what was the world like back in the early to mid nineties when the Internet was still called the "World Wide Web?"  It was a time of rumors, hearsay and a feeling of isolation.  The world was literally your neighborhood and your school.  You cared not for what happened a few streets over let alone what was going on across the planet.  Well that's not entirely true.  I did care about the world even in my pre-Internet days.  I read newspapers, books, magazines and tried to watch television programs that featured international news.  I listened to radio at night time because the BBC came on around midnight and their accents and information filled in the gaps that the USA celebrity gossip central media had left.

Then in 1995 I got my first access to the Internet through a class in High School.  I set up an email account (which I still have) and started exploring the chat rooms and the free online encyclopedias.  I fell in love with the speed and randomness of chat rooms and often spent hours after school chatting with other teens across the planet.  I even made a rudimentary website at the now defunct Geocities. 

I was absorbed and impressed by the Internet culture.  I loved the predictable rants, threats and insults from the socially inept.  I craved the chance to be a knight in shining armor saving the one bullied participant in the chat rooms.  And then something happened.  I discovered news media sites from different countries in English.

I set my homepage to The Tokyo Times and started reading other Asian papers as well, Singapore, Hong Kong and probably the most bizarre, The Moscow Times.  I was becoming a student of the world and I couldn't get enough.  I abandoned American papers and news media for the BBC, Reuters and pretty much anything that did not concentrate on the political grandstanding and petty cat and mouse game of American politics.  Of course, I was kidding myself if I thought that politics were serious business anywhere else, but it made me feel special, a truly global citizen that I new what was happening in the Japanese Diet while the rest of my classmates were busy discussing this end of grunge and the new sound of sugary pop.

I can't express how grateful I am for the Internet.  I'm on everyday and even though it has its problems, trolls and people who would use it for nefarious goals, the Internet is the most important human invention since the printing press.  Let's see what the Web has for me today.