A Technophobic Confession :: Personal Narrative Computers Papers

A Technophobic Confession I am a technophobe. There, I admitted it. The Unabomber, George Orwell, my stubborn grandfather and I are all members of the same fraternity. I am in the closet no longer. Just because I dont blow up buildings doesnt pie-eyed Im not afraid of the unrelenting onslaught of technology. I went to high gear school in a small town in rural Illinois, and until the age of sixteen, I was able to survive without touching a figurer. In fact, the only superstar I remember seeing on a regular basis was the one in the corner of the public library. Up until my junior year in high school, that computer was just about the loneliest thing in the world. Most of the great deal in town used a computer for one of two things word processing or playing video games, and anybody who really had any disposition to do either of these owned a computer or had access to one at work. The librarians daughter used to set books on top of that computer when she was sorting them out to be reshelved. I always thought of the computer as just that, an overglorified bookrack. I laughed to see a tall, precariously balanced visual sense of books on top of the monitor, which was all but hidden by its dust cover body bag. I laughed because I am a technophobe, and to see it being used in this manner reassured me that computers were, quite obviously, a waste of time and money. Then the e-mail epidemic began cropping up in cities across the nation, and it open up quickly. Like all innovations, it eventually made its way to the Middle West. The outbreak in my hometown started where I least expected it in that eternally slumbering computer school term underneath the stack of book returns. It happened overnight. The computer was wired to the Internet. The small weekly local paper pushed the Knights of Columbus hall off the front page to channelize a story about the Information Superhighway. Clouds brooded on the horizon and little children tossed uneasily in t heir sleep. I was good friends with the librarians daughter. We went to the same high school. She was in my circle of friends. We were juniors. She was the first to get an email address.