Interconnectivity

So I’m all about the Internet. Interconnectivity and shit. I love that I can video-chat with my brother in Massachusetts and my parents in South Carolina. I like that I know what’s going on in the lives of my friends back home. Reading new blogs is fun, even if I suck at commenting, and there are so many cool things out there.

It’s convenient that I’ve never been to a library to write a paper. It makes life easier. I can google anything. It’s great.

Except it’s not that great. Have you ever thought about it? We’re the last generation to really have printed pictures. To still remember the thrill of getting an envelope filled with pictures you haven’t seen yet. Or the joy of getting a letter in the mail from a friend. When I was little, my best friend used to write me letters. That doesn’t happen anymore.

What’s going to happen to all of our pictures when we get old? Are we going to plop our kids in front of a computer to show them the shots we took? Send them the link to our blogs so they know how we used to think? I have my old diary from when I was 8. I know how silly I was. I had a crush on J and my entries were devoted to him. That and how a boy named G spilt shampoo on the bus. Yeah, I don’t know either. But the point is, they exist. Unless they burn in a fire, I can give it to my kids to read and laugh at. It’s the same case with the letters I still have hidden in a little yellow bag. The old love notes from ex-boyfriends. You know, the ones that make you cringe when you read them and you sit there going “what did I ever see in him?”. It’s part of our lives. We’ll know the feeling of wanting to burn the letters in a huge bonfire but then deciding, last minute, not to.

Right now, everyone texts, emails, IMs, and twits. Technology is great. I’m a huge supporter of connectivity. But I was talking to my mom today. She used to go to the library to write papers, where she’d meet someone and then have coffee together, where they’d befriend someone else. When she took public transportation, she’d often talk to the person beside her. Hell, she used to hitchhike.

Can you imagine hitchhiking now? It wouldn’t work. No one would stop to pick you up. Or having a chat with the person on the train beside you? If they unplugged the iPod permanently glued to their ear, maybe we could all learn something. I might be alone in this but I’m really glad you can’t talk on the phone or underground. It gives you a break. It lets you bond with the people around you in real life and not strangers through a computer.

The other thing that baffles me is Twitter. I think it’s weird that I can “follow” famous people and read their thoughts. I know the rich and famous are normal people but I’d like to think they’re more intelligent than the average person. And hopefully more so than their followers, who update with things like: “@FamousPerson, I think you’re great. REPLY!!! I want to feel popular so I can tell all my middleschool friends about this!!!“

I confess, I made a t-shirt for Daniel Radcliffe once with my friends. It was a joke idea that we decided to pull for the sheer joy of it all. We made a shirt with our phone numbers on it, in the hopes that when we saw him after Equus we’d figure out a way to give it to him.

We did. Well actually, I was put in charge of giving it to him because I was the last person they let in to the little cage you had to stand in to get close. I got shoved, elbowed, and yanked but I managed to get to the front of the barricade, where I stood when he got out. Then, filled with bravery, I gave him the shirt. A few words were exchanged which seemed infinitely important at the time but I can’t remember now.

A few weeks later I saw him again. I asked him about the shirt, which he had no idea about. That’s when I realized that something that was special to my friends and I was barely a blimp on his radar. Yeah, it sucked, but I got over it. Sure I still cringe when I think about it, feeling really lame, but it happened and that’s life. Just because you give a guy a shirt doesn’t mean you’re special. It mostly means you have a lot of time on your hands.

It’s the same story with Twitter. It’s really cool that these celebrities are online and all but their replies won’t make or break you. They’re just nice to have. Sure I follow some famous people because I’m just as interested as the next person in what these people have to say. Obviously they’re something special, aren’t they? They get paid loads of money and people know their name. But in the end, they’re people just like you and me. I promise you Brad Pitt has bad days and Angelina Jolie looks in the mirror and thinks she looks like shit sometimes. They’re special but they’re not that special. They’re still human beings.

But then again, who am I to talk about famous people when I’m driving across the US with a cardboard cutout of Zac Efron?