Life on the Screen

[calzephyr]

I picked up this book from the free pile on our office clean up day, and it's not too hard to see why it was discarded. Published in 1996, it is painfully dated, but at the same time still useful in examining how the Internet has changed people's behaviours. She could probably write a revised version that substitutes MUDs for MMPORGs, but the effect would still be the same - when people go online they reveal or create identities for themselves and how they use them either to simply "be" or safely explore parts of their identity or gender swapping. It's hard to recall how a relatively short time span has passed since the Internet became popular 10-12 years and just how much the technology has changed. Before I used to have to stay up to go online so as not to hog the phone line, now the Internet is "always on" in our house. Something so new has become so commonplace that one doesn't really think about how it got to this point, and Sherry Turkle's book is that explanation.

Comments

[fledchen.livejournal.com]

That sounds really interesting. It looks like the local library has a copy, I might check it out at some point.

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you'll like it :-) I really want to read The Second Self too.