3x Thursday

Internet Randomness

1. How much email do you get on an average day? How much of it is spam?

At work: 20-50 emails (I'm on four listserves, so that causes a lot of email).
At home: 1 or 2, on a busy day.
At Gmail (three accounts): Anywhere from 15 to 50 (see next question).

2. Can you imagine life without the internet? What kind of life did you lead before the internet became an everyday thing? Did it change much afterwards?

I've been online for over 15 years. I can't even remember life before computer access to people across the world! I do remember when we got Internet capability at the library: just about 10 years ago. We were still neophytes, so I searched for random stuff all the time while sitting at the Reference Desk.

Things have changed a lot. Since we got this laptop, I'm rarly 'unplugged.'

3. What year did you start tinkering around on the internet? What did you do to pass the time? Do you still do it? Why/why not?

Oops, sorry: got there ahead of this question! I really started messing about the internet itself about 1996 as described above. We had net access at home before that, through Prodigy and then AOL (for about 2 years--I still loathe AOL). On Prodigy, I was a member of several bulletin boards. Once we got the internet, I discovered chat rooms and online gaming; went through quite a little addiction phase. I met lots of fun people and a few scary ones too.

Blogging is very similar in 'feel' to the Prodigy boards. You find people of like minds through serendipity and similar interests.

Bonus Question for Comments: Did you ever do anything online-community oriented? What was it? Do you still do it?

Oops, got there ahead of time again! Yes, I did: I was heavily involved with a Star Trek fan group called Ten-Forward. I faded away once Sparky arrived on the scene (too busy). I look back in fondness, but I have virtually nothing in common with anyone there anymore. It's a bit like high school that way. ;-)