My Wild Card!

I loved the idea of choosing a wild card topic of my choice and discussing my experience but what I didn’t expect was having a very difficult time finding something to write about. I have been thinking of ideas over the past few days and I have decided to discuss an experience I had when I was a freshman here at Oregon State. When I came to college I had just discovered Myspace and Facebook so when I heard about AIM and the accessible way to talk to friends I was excited to give it a try. I found friends at college who had been communicating on AIM for years but for me it was a new adventure. Communicating became much more fun for me because I was able to talk to multiple people at one time and not worry about how I looked, what I was wearing and I loved the idea of being able to respond whenever I chose instead of instantly in a normal face-to-face conversation. With the ease of AIM I was able to accomplish a lot of tasks around my room and all I had to do was hear the little noise notifying me I had a new message and walk back to my computer. Communicating on the internet was fast and very easy.

So with the help of Facebook and AIM combined, my story begins. I had a very close guy friend who was on my computer one night and he saw that we were on the same Facebook group. It was a group related to fishing and hunting, a passion we both still share. For those of you who don’t know Facebook well enough you can see the other members that are part of the same group by their profile photo. I had looked before at the other members and had come across a guy who had a huge 6x6 bull in the picture with him and his bow. Now, as small as I may be I am in fact a bow hunter and love archery. When I saw that this guy had shot this bull with his bow I was pretty impressed because it’s becoming harder for me to find anyone who shares the same passion. I couldn’t look at his profile and all I had to go by was a very small picture that Facebook had provided me. When my buddy who was on my computer saw that the guy I was impressed with was part of the same group he told me he knew him personally and actually was a good friend of his. I was surprised but also a little excited because I thought perhaps he could introduce me sometime and we could talk about hunting and archery. My friend told me a little bit about him and then gave me the confidence to message the bow hunter via Facebook. Normally I would never have considered doing something this bold but because my friend knew him I thought that it couldn’t hurt. I messaged him saying that we knew the same friend, I was impressed by his picture and I was a bow hunter as well. I must admit I did feel very awkward messaging a complete stranger I didn’t know and telling him I liked his picture. Even with my hesitations to my surprise he did in fact message me back and we began to exchange messages. Once we reached more familiar ground he said that I could message him anytime on AIM and of course Facebook has a section where you can put all of your information to get in connect with that person. So with that said we began to communicate through AIM and slowly got to know each other better. Long story short we decided to me at the OSU gymnastics meet in Corvallis and became very close friends. A year or so later we dated and even though that never worked out were still very close friends today.

Now looking back at my experience I know that the internet gave us the opportunity to meet one another. I realize that my friend could have eventually introduced us but the internet gave me the opportunity to communicate with him that very moment. With the realm of cyberspace you can become anyone you want with a click of a button and I was lucky enough to find a friend who represented himself honestly. Cyberspace made it easy and very convenient for us to get to know each other and see if it was even worthwhile to meet in the future. It was easier to talk online compared to face-to-face because I feel we didn’t have as much to lose. We had never met face-to-face and if we didn’t like each other than either one of us could have ceased conversation. With that said I also think that the situation became harder at times because we were communicating on the internet and not in person. I have always had difficulty knowing what someone really means when I communicate with them via AIM or Facebook chat. The same goes for texting in the sense that perhaps someone is trying to be funny but I take them as being rude and unfriendly. I think that when you know someone and have become acquainted with them in person then it is easier to know their expressions or jokes when you are communicating online. For example I have a friend who is very brash and has a dry sense of humor. Whenever I talk to him online I am able to distinguish that he’s not insulting me but being himself and relaxed instead. The face-to-face personal interaction helps me identify someone when were speaking in cyberspace. As for the bow hunter I had never met him when we began talking on AIM and it made it more difficult for me to know if he was serious or joking at times.

Another important point that I think should be made is that technology is flawed. I can remember at one point in our many discussions that he stopped talking to me in mid-sentence. I thought perhaps I had said something wrong but I found out days later that his computer was going haywire and he was trying to respond but couldn’t. The situation was indeed mis-communicated because of the technology. In Wood and Smith’s chapter on page 168 they state, “Already three fourths of all teenagers use the Internet for study, socializing, and entertainment. Just think, a mere decade ago, Internet usage was a rarity, a research tool for scientists or a plaything for the wealthy.” Now look at us. I was one of those teenagers using the internet to socialize and establish a bigger friendship network. I was drawn in by the ease of the technology and now I use cyberspace everyday. Postman also makes an excellent point on page 179, “Into this void comes the Technopoly story, with its emphasis on progress without limits, rights without responsibilities, and technology without cost.” I feel that cyberspace is becoming if not already is this realm of emphasis. Things are constantly changing and I’m not sure if it’s even for the better.
My entire experience told me a lot about our culture today. We like things to be easy and cyberspace gives us a great opportunity to do ample amount of things, including meeting someone through AIM or other networks. I could have very easily had a bad experience with my internet communication and the OSU student. Luckily I didn’t but I could have become very bitter I’m sure towards AIM and other chatting realms if I had a bad experience. I think overall that all of us need to be very careful with who we meet and what we present to other people because we don’t know who is watching.