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Dear Mom and Dad, I wanted to explain why I spend so much time surfing around and seemingly doing nothing on the computer. I want to explain why I come home and would rather talk to my friends through messenger than talk to you in person. I want to explain that the role of the media as the arbiter of knowledge and influence in society has seriously waned as a new collective intelligence grows from people just like me, interconnected worldwide. I’ve been mainlining internet heavily for about five years now. As I grow, the internet grows with me. It’s a comfortable addiction. I learn new things from it and it learns new things from me. It’s a nice relationship but I’m obviously hooked. I refuse to pay for broadband. My Sympatico account is a necessary evil. I don’t understand why internet access isn’t free. Just like air. Think of the innovation potential if everyone had free, unlimited, ubiquitous, WiFi. Think about all the new places I’d be able to get my fix! I’m not blowing smoke – free, fast wireless internet really is coming. In an instant, we’ll be able to receive hundreds of gigabytes streamed to us. Just look at the cost curve of computing: costs of computing are going down at the same time as the capacity of computing is going up. Did you know that it only costs 25% of 1 cent to stream 10 hours of video to one person on YouTube? It’s basically free. Bandwidth, storage capacity, processing speed. These three dimensions have near infinite capacity and an incredibly low marginal cost. So Mom and Dad, you want to know why I’m spending hours online? It’s because the internet has evolved from being a reference source (Web 1.0) to being a destination for social interaction and cultural expression (Web 2.0). It’s basically become more democratic. This is precipitated by the fact that technology is so advanced and so seemingly free. But there’s another rub. You’ve raised a generation markedly different from how you were raised. In the 1950s and 60s there were rules. There were standards and you lived up to them. While I’d like to believe that I (someday) will also live up to the standards that you set for me, there’s considerably more latitude given by parents to the choices and identities that youth make today. Youth expression is nothing new, but today’s youth define themselves by a wider spectrum of tastes, preferences, and affiliations than ever before. When I define myself, I think in a web-like way. I think of the interconnections and relationships I surround myself by. I think of the people I know and the music I listen to. I think of the places I’ve been and the issues I stand for. So really how fair is it to label youth as ‘nerd’, ‘jock’, ‘princess’, ‘goth’? At any given time, I’m all of those labels! It’s interesting therefore to hypothesize about the possibilities catalyzed when a diverse, expressive, and individualistic generation is paired with a technology that is founded on the principles of user-participation, networking, and niche marketing. So Mom and Dad, please understand why I go crazy when the wireless internet is down. It’s not only my conduit to an entirely separate life I live online, but also it’s a standard that I’ve been brought up to expect. Love Max
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