The Dark Side of the Web

As we discuss the early years of the Internet, we will discover how, as with many things, it can be both good and bad, having both a bright side and a dark side. Many of its elements can belong to both sides, depending on their use.

In 1993, Peter Steiner captured the spirit of the Internet at the time with his cartoon in the New Yorker: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." 

People were realizing that the Internet could be used as a tool of liberation, allowing them to reinvent themselves and leave their bodies behind. At first, they made small changes, such as making themselves ten to thirty years younger when talking with others on chat. But they soon began experimenting with many more changes to their profile and soon realized that they could become a different persona, altogether. This raised many criticisms, regarding moral and security issues, thus sending this element to the dark side.

But others saw the situation much differently. Sure it raised negative possibilities but it offered some ground breaking positive possibilities as well. Take "school" for example. The school environment can be both harsh and psychologically damaging. The school society is divided into cliques. The head of the cliques are cool, popular kids: kids that look right. And grouped around them are kids who are physically pleasing enough for now.

So, where does this leave the kids that don't quite fit in: kids that stutter, for example, or are not physically pleasing enough? They are usually shut out, laughed at, bullied - all because of their physical appearance. 

And this is where the Internet comes in. In 1991, we ran a program where a number of schools from different socio-economic areas were involved. Each student was paired with students from two different schools. They started out by introducing themselve through email. After they became fairly well acquainted, they discussed issues which were brought up. We soon discovered that the social framework of the class greatly changed as the kids related only to the writing without knowing anything about their physical appearance. As such, kids who were usuallly at the bottom of the social ladder often appeared now at the top because of their writing skills. What made it even more interesting was the day when the students from all of the participating schools got onto buses and travelled to a common meeting point. There was an awkward point when it was discovered that a girl student who was writing to two girls had pretended that she was a boy and the girls were apparently quite infatuated with her through her writing. But that won't stop us from sending this experience to the bright side.

In my first novel - "As I Died Laughing" - I took this one step further, where a husband invents a virtual character to seduce his wife. Why did he do it? We won't go into that here. Let's just say that things worked out much differently than he had expected. His wife fell in love with this virtual character that he invented and he discovered that he could now only find true intimacy with his wife through the eyes of his virtual character.

Do you have similar experiences that you want to share with us? You can write about them in the "comments section" down below or send me the description for a guest posting.

Back to the Future

In the early days of the Internet (early 1990's) there was a group of visionary educators from around the world who realized that we were on the brink of a digital revolution. In those days, almost all of the K12 (kindergarten until grade 12) educators online either knew each other or knew of each other. All you needed was at least one Internet connection in the school and you could take off. 

Many exciting international, educational projects were initiated by teachers in the field during this time. Ministries of Education from around the world still had no idea what the Internet was all about and Bill Gates hadn't yet realized that the Internet was the next big thing. By the time he did, the Internet was already firmly entrenched as a grassroot phenomenon and noone was going to take it away. It was for the people, by the people and belonged to the people - where teachers were empowered in ways never thought possible before. They were no longer dependent only on those things dictated from above. It was an exciting time to be a teacher.

I will try to recreate some of the excitement from these years in posts to come. I know that many of my old virtual colleagues are still out there - whether still teaching or retired. You are warmly invited to tell us something about your own initiatives during these years, either in the "comments section" below this post or by sending me a posting which I will post as a "guest posting".

 

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Ramblings of a disturbed mind

Flying back and forth, year after year, one might ask me what I find, or what I leave behind. There is a certain compulsion in moving, just as there is in being rooted to the same spot. Once I thought that movement would enable me to reinvent myself, and I suppose it did. Reinvent, but not re-imagine. There are people along the way, and people almost forgotten. At times, I wake up calling their name and they do not respond. Have I become this old?

I do not know which way is backward and which is forward anymore. People look at me and wonder why I am standing still.
"It is not me," I say.
But they claim the world isn't spinning. I will not see where it begins and ends by standing still.

We want to be loved, but it is difficult when people don't have anything to hold onto. I look at the literary greats and all that they seem to want to do is to chase out the voice. So that the clamour will stop.

Is that what we really want? Solitude and quiet? Others must know that we exist, though. Else the solitude is lost. It starts with one person, and then a few, and then we want the whole world to hear. How do we make ourselves heard? How do we separate ourselves from the echoes?

It is comforting to know that people believe me to be disturbed. It is the only way I can fit in - the only door left open to me. I fly from side to side, from place to place, backwards and forwards. Without moving, but ending up somewhere I have never been.

"But no," you say. "You are returning from whence you came."
"I have nowhere else to go. The problem is, it isn't really there."

What is an Expat like you doing in a place like this?

One of the best things about growing older is that people tend to stop questioning your life choices. Maybe this is because they don’t see you as having much of a life left. The expiration date has passed, and they figure that you are here to stay.

But old expat habits die hard. When do we say enough is enough?

Ruth wrote (in a comment to my blog) : “I never felt 100% at home in London, either. I lived for a year in France, and though I was completely fluent and had learnt French from the age of 5, I never felt even remotely at home there. Then I made aliya, and I also felt in some mysterious way that I had come home here. But now after 30 years I am restless again and want to move somewhere else. I have learnt how to be Israeli and now it's no longer enough for me. It's like the Wandering Jew thing. I want to learn another culture, be the outsider trying to fit in all over again. Can't explain it but I do think that becoming a citizen of the world, especially since the advent of the Internet, has become more important to me than any religious or national identity thing could.”

I have learnt how to be Israeli and now it’s no longer enough for me. I can identify with that. But do I want to be the outsider trying to fit in all over again? How many times can we reinvent ourselves, and all that surrounds us?

Purple Cow wrote: “So where do you feel that you belong? Where is your Ithaca? Or does it just keep shifting on you every time you happen to find it? I, too, relate to you... born a minority Greek in Istanbul, moved to Australia and now an "Australian" in Athens, but always a hybrid.”

The ground has stopped shifting. Does this mean that I have finally given up trying to find where I  belong? How many expats share our experience? Perhaps our reflections are just some sort of romantic notion of a modern nomadic culture that we have made up in our head.  How many of you out there were restlessly driven to voluntarily leave country and culture behind with no idea where you’d end up simply because you had to be some sort of outsider trying to fit in, or find a part of yourself which was greater than all one country had to offer? Or did you simply become an expat out of work opportunity or convenience, never quite knowing that there may be no way back? Does it matter how we started in order to explain where we are now? And where we may be tomorrow?

So, what is an Expat like you doing in a place like this? Do you dare tell us the inside story?