that went down my spine was the same shock of recognition I felt the morning I met my husband, the day I watched my son play his first game of water polo, the moment I beheld my firstborn’s face: that there was life before this moment, and then there would be life after. And I know that sounds pretty dramatic. But ... that’s the point.
After twenty-four years, two husbands, and more changes of hairstyle than I care to count, I am still a New Yorker who’s just passing through. It’s a cultural identity as stubborn as any birthmark, which no amount of exposure to the relentless Western Australian sunshine can fade. For me, information technology is so much more than a means to an end. It’s a hotline, a lifeline, to my Real World. The one in which I cannot physically or directly participate. The one that exists Up Over, half a world beyond the impossible blue of the Indian Ocean and the breeze sweeping in through the kitchen window.
As I swatted a blowfly dead—blowflies are to the Western Australian summer what blackheads are to being fourteen—it occurred to me that the biggest challenge of this whole project might have to do with relinquishing that ostrichlike delusion: that burying my head in information and entertainment from “home” was just as good as actually being there.
But for now, there were many smaller decks that needed to be cleared. At the moment, we were screen-free in theory only. In reality, it was a case of media, media everywhere and not a drop to drink.
The laptops were no problem to pack away—I stuck all three of them in a filing cabinet, under H for hibernation—but bedding down Bill’s beloved gaming PC took a bit more grunt.
The Beast, as we called it (and the towering gray chipboard enclosure in which it brooded), had been allowed to become the focal point of the family room. Now it sat slightly askew, covered in dust and discarded peripherals, like a ruined monument from some long-vanished race of teenage barbarians.
A massive monitor sat serenely in the center of it all surrounded by offerings of half-drunk water bottles and crumpled candy wrappers. I rolled the table out from the wall, uncovering a snake pit of cobwebby cords, cables, and connectors. Also a physics textbook. I spotted a hank of what I feared was human hair but turned out to be a tumbleweed of Rupert’s undercoat and some pencil shavings. I took a photo, just for old time’s sake. And then I rolled up my sleeves.
Over the next two hours, I unplugged and coiled up chargers for a bewildering profusion of digital drek: two mobile phones, one Nintendo DS, a PS/3, an iPod, two vintage Game Boys, several thumb drives, an external hard drive, and a digital camera. Three-quarters of these devices were missing and presumed dead, but I saved the chargers anyhow. Because they might show up one day, like Bo Peep’s sheep or some deadbeat dad—and also because I am, alas, a hoarder. To be honest, it was all I could do to toss out the tumbling tumbleweed.
The rest of the gear I dusted, coiled, and stashed at the back of the old TV cabinet, next to the Barney videos. (Yeah, well. We might want to watch them again someday, okay?) The Beast itself would be leaving for a working holiday, a sort of whistle-stop tour of Bill’s friends’ bedrooms. I packed it a little bag—a USB cable, some DVDs, and a thumb drive, just in case it got peckish—and lugged it to the front door to await pick-up.
I’d always worried that being a single-parent family somehow put us at greater risk of information abuse. But no, according to the Pew Internet & American Life survey. The latest figures show that two-parent families with children have the highest technology concentration of any household type. Today the average eight- to eighteen-year-old shares his home with two computers, and 84 percent of American children have a home Internet connection. So, all up, our tally of one desktop and three laptops—a networked
After twenty-four years, two husbands, and more changes of hairstyle than I care to count, I am still a New Yorker who’s just passing through. It’s a cultural identity as stubborn as any birthmark, which no amount of exposure to the relentless Western Australian sunshine can fade. For me, information technology is so much more than a means to an end. It’s a hotline, a lifeline, to my Real World. The one in which I cannot physically or directly participate. The one that exists Up Over, half a world beyond the impossible blue of the Indian Ocean and the breeze sweeping in through the kitchen window.
As I swatted a blowfly dead—blowflies are to the Western Australian summer what blackheads are to being fourteen—it occurred to me that the biggest challenge of this whole project might have to do with relinquishing that ostrichlike delusion: that burying my head in information and entertainment from “home” was just as good as actually being there.
But for now, there were many smaller decks that needed to be cleared. At the moment, we were screen-free in theory only. In reality, it was a case of media, media everywhere and not a drop to drink.
The laptops were no problem to pack away—I stuck all three of them in a filing cabinet, under H for hibernation—but bedding down Bill’s beloved gaming PC took a bit more grunt.
The Beast, as we called it (and the towering gray chipboard enclosure in which it brooded), had been allowed to become the focal point of the family room. Now it sat slightly askew, covered in dust and discarded peripherals, like a ruined monument from some long-vanished race of teenage barbarians.
A massive monitor sat serenely in the center of it all surrounded by offerings of half-drunk water bottles and crumpled candy wrappers. I rolled the table out from the wall, uncovering a snake pit of cobwebby cords, cables, and connectors. Also a physics textbook. I spotted a hank of what I feared was human hair but turned out to be a tumbleweed of Rupert’s undercoat and some pencil shavings. I took a photo, just for old time’s sake. And then I rolled up my sleeves.
Over the next two hours, I unplugged and coiled up chargers for a bewildering profusion of digital drek: two mobile phones, one Nintendo DS, a PS/3, an iPod, two vintage Game Boys, several thumb drives, an external hard drive, and a digital camera. Three-quarters of these devices were missing and presumed dead, but I saved the chargers anyhow. Because they might show up one day, like Bo Peep’s sheep or some deadbeat dad—and also because I am, alas, a hoarder. To be honest, it was all I could do to toss out the tumbling tumbleweed.
The rest of the gear I dusted, coiled, and stashed at the back of the old TV cabinet, next to the Barney videos. (Yeah, well. We might want to watch them again someday, okay?) The Beast itself would be leaving for a working holiday, a sort of whistle-stop tour of Bill’s friends’ bedrooms. I packed it a little bag—a USB cable, some DVDs, and a thumb drive, just in case it got peckish—and lugged it to the front door to await pick-up.
I’d always worried that being a single-parent family somehow put us at greater risk of information abuse. But no, according to the Pew Internet & American Life survey. The latest figures show that two-parent families with children have the highest technology concentration of any household type. Today the average eight- to eighteen-year-old shares his home with two computers, and 84 percent of American children have a home Internet connection. So, all up, our tally of one desktop and three laptops—a networked
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