I grew up without a computer. The nearest thing we had to a computer was a keypad that we could plug into the telly and 'pretend' we were on a real computer! My childhood was all about creativity and using the mind to find fun things to do..i.e games, with real people in the real world! I never would have even began to imagine that we would enter a phase in the world where every one communicates THROUGH a computer, as apposed to face to face, in real life! I thought the phone was magical enough...'how amazing' i thought 'our voices can travel down a wire into the other persons ear!'. So you can imagine just how fascinated i was when i got my hands on a computer for the first time.
I have to admit, My laptop is one of my most valuable possessions. Purely because I am forever using it for my writing, photo editing, keeping control of my website and social networking. And now, I am a bit of a natural, like most people, at instant messaging and communicating through email and on line messages! But when I first came across social networking I felt like a complete and utter idiot! How weird to 'chat' to some one without actually hearing their voice. When I first began joining in this craze people must have thought I had a completely emotionless and empty head due to my lack of knowledge on how to express, well, anything without seeing the persons face or hearing their voice. I had no idea what so ever how to transmit any sort of enthusisasm or emotion over the Internet...and it all made me feel very weird, detached and stupid! I remember the first time, I was at home and my best friend Kerry was at school, I was using my sisters boyfriends computer and attempted my first online chat with Kerry. I remember as I typed ''hello, how are you'' i looked around the room and felt really embarrassed that i was trying to talk to some one in this really odd and emotionless way! I had just talked to her on the phone, why would i ask how she is, but that is how i begin all my emails, so this must be how I begin any sort of instant messaging also. Then, she LOL'd at me! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT! I ignored it thinking she had made some spelling error...but she continued to LOL every time we had any sort of amusing chat exchange...so, feeling silly, I asked her ''what is LOL'' and she replied ''laugh out loud, it means I find it funny what you have said!''. I couldn't believe it..there was a actual virtual way of laughing. I attempted to lol in future but it made me feel like a right pillock...so instead I would, and still do, write ''hahaha'' if I find some thing funny. After all..who really sits at their computer with no one around and Laughs Out Loud! Its just rubbish if you ask me..a simple way to say ''yeah that was funny what you just said but im not reeeaallly laughing out loud!''. And if some thing really does make me fall off my chair with laughter I will just tell them ''that really made me laugh''. Or as my good friend Gem says ''I just laughed out loud in this quiet office and everyone now thinks Im mental''...much better! It makes me laugh in return and is a honest portrayal of how mental us humans look sitting laughing at a screen! Brilliant!
I am completely all for the Internet and all its great advantages, but I refuse to use shortcuts to express some thing! Just say it as it is, be real, we are REAl..we are not living in a computer game and we don't live in a virtual world!
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