Why Relationships? – 6 – A Guidebook to Internet Use Self-Assessment

Hopefully my brief introduction to the topic of relationships was enough to pique your interest to stay with me through the communication section.  Communication is near-and-dear to my heart and I find it intriguing, but then I made it through an Electrical Engineering degree and when I look back on it I think it might have been fun too… Communication is basically why the Internet (and a lot of other things) was initially so successful (and perhaps why it was invented, but I won’t try to apply limits to or impute motives to these brilliant people).  Making information available quickly, simply and widely made the Internet explode and continues to be a major source of attraction.

There are elements of the Internet now that were either there early on and took a while to notice or have been developing and have been adding dimensions that weren’t really there at first – for most people anyway.  Email was there to tell people things.  It was better than snail mail but was modeled more along those lines – writing letters and sending them electronically vs. ink/paper/stamp/envelope/post office.  This did make the process faster/easier/…  It changed some things regarding interpersonal communication, but not profoundly (at least relative to things that have happened since and seem to be happening at an accelerating pace).

Many moons ago when my son was much younger I successfully passed the geek virus along to him by helping him build his own IBM compatible computer (the infection process started sooner, but I think we agree that this is when it really TOOK).  One of the things he found and started to successfully use with his friends while they were collectively learning (read squandering huge amounts of their time in non-geek social circles) were IRC chat channels.  These were the precursors to what we call instant messaging today.  They were sort of like a party line telephone, and they could hop like a party sometimes.  I don’t actually know who started the familiarization process and won’t offend any of his friends by trying to speculate (and also won’t suggest that it started with his group of friends), but I view this as the beginning (arguable I imagine) of the social phenomenon that is – yes I’ll say it – “sweeping the Internet.”

IRC – Internet Relay Chat – was a program that ran on a central computer connected to the internet to which you could then connect (through your telephone modem – yes, you remember) using a program that you installed on your computer and then painfully set up.  You could set up your own channel and tell your friends about it, and then assign each other names/handles (10-4 good buddy) and then they could all send comments to be included in a stream-of-consciousness chat among your friends.  The administrators had options for rules of interaction.  I’m sure they used it to help each other through disasters, work through problems, arrange other entertainment, and arrange/discuss all sorts of shenanigans.  Our phone lines would have been busy anyway, so…

From my perspective, this was the beginning of something BIG.  It showed the promise that the Internet was not just about providing more/better/faster information, but it could change the way people interact in dramatic fashion – at least it seemed pretty dramatic at the time.  Things have changed a lot since then.  Every new twist and turn reinforces the fact that we are implementing and then experiencing a revolution in the options people have and the way in which people relate to each other.

That’s why.