Do you remember the old internet?
Maybe you were just a child, or a teen like I was...or a middle aged person surfing through sites about your favorite hobby and reading the blogs and personal websites of others who shared your interests. It was a wonderful time, being able to meet those from around the world who felt "like home", emailing new friends, signing guestbooks, and maybe finding your way into your first chat room.
My, how far we've fallen from that heaven.
What's your internet experience like, now? Do you feel like some unseen entity is somehow able to reach through your screen, farming the rage welling up in your heart when you read the endless supply of upsetting things? Does it feel like you are dodging a minefield of offensive and inflammatory posts from
acquaintances, ads from companies you don't want to see, and being beaten over the head by 168 messages per minute? Where is the peace? Isn't the online world supposed to be fun?
And going down that road...what happened to "the online world"? Remember when "getting online" was dialing into your modem (Wow, can you remember the exact order of those beeps and boops? I can! Let the nostalgia roll!) Once you were in, checking your email with anticipation, and surfing to your favorite websites to see if any content was updated? Webrings connected your favorite personal websites, and maybe you liked to read Yahoo! News find out about the wider world from AOL. Those things were FUN! And if they weren't, you just surfed away to a different site. The online world was connected, yet distinctly different in each landing space. I don't know if kids now even have a concept of "the internet" as a place to visit...because their world mainly exists in apps and social media networks.
This Millennial is longing...craving for a simpler time. I am always on a low-key search for a curated web expirience where I can escape the chaos of bill paying, toddler watching, and worrying about work...back to a peaceful garden of internet surfing. Does such a place exist? I feel it must exist, but it's hidden...it certainly won't be advertised on Google or Facebook or any such place of digital pandemonium. But surely some small kind space is out there, tucked away in a huge internet world which is increasingly vanilla and streamlined.
If you know of such a gem, please do share <3
