John W self-portrait as a media user

John W. of 21w.784 Becoming Digital (9/13/06)
When I came to MIT I realized that I was probably the only kid here who still didn’t know what RAM was or why it is so much better to have 80MB of hard drive space instead of 60MB. How did I manage to evade all of that technical lingo for so many years? I think it has something to do with my somewhat old-fashioned views about all of the new types of media and technology. And by “old fashioned” I mean that my parents’ talks about the TV rotting my brain away really rubbed off on me. This is why I try to keep my interaction with modern media sources to a minimum. I treat them as valuable resources that have the potential to greatly enrich the way I live my life as well as the way I touch the lives of others, especially since my network of friends and family spans the entire globe.
This doesn’t mean however that I refuse to touch Facebook, Counter Strike, or the TV remote sitting on the arm of my couch. I absolutely love having these media sources at my fingertips, but I don’t center my life around them. A good example of how I use my computer is if I’m walking down the street and see some guy or girl on Japanese crotch-rocket do a wheelie and I want to know how they did it, I’d go to video.goolge.com and search for a video tutorial on wheeling motorcycles. Or if I suddenly remember that I haven’t spoken with my old best friend in three years, I’d facebook him and send him a message. It is this sort of utilitarian relationship that I have developed with my computer that makes me feel liberated from the inundation of technology that we have all lived through in recent years. My computer is one of the last things I turn to when I am looking to have a good time or to relax.
This ‘strictly business’ attitude is how I view my mobile phone as well. I use it solely to establish times and places for meetings and also to let my family know that I’m still alive. I can’t bring myself to talk on the phone about non-important things. I like to save that for face-to-face conversations, which are in my opinion the best kind to have. Along with the fear of brain cancer from mobile-telephone related radiation, I can’t seem to forget that I’m paying for every minute that I talk. Those two things usually encourage me to keep things short and sweet while on the phone.
Perhaps the greatest enigma of all is that I can’t get into video games of any sort. I can’t even enjoy the games that are about what I love in real life. I love motorcycles, but I can’t play motorcycle games because it is too inadequate when compared to the real experience that it attempts to model. Riding a motorcycle is appealing to me because of the wind, forces, and freedom. The video games lack all of these things and so I am left feeling like I am sitting in front of a TV with an over-priced piece of plastic in my hands wasting time. I have had similar experiences with military aircraft games despite being passionate about military aircraft to the point where I almost joined the USAF.
To me, spending time in front of a computer is time spent looking at a 2D screen and nothing more. The things I enjoy in life can’t be transmitted over a web-cam or a telephone. All types of media lack a certain human warmth and a certain roughness of the real word. I don’t ever expect media to take me away from reality or to replicate the sensation of having a fulfilling conversation with another person. I don’t get my hopes up about media as anything else but a pool of information and a medium for basic communication and therefore I’m never disappointed by it.