Artful Code

I’m old enough that I remember when email happened on the local university’s VAX system or by dialing into some yahoo’s computer running Angelfire BBS with four phone lines.  I remember just how blazingly fast a 9600 baud modem seemed.  I’m even old enough to remember typing ATDT into Telix :).  Alright, I’m only 30, but even at my age I sometimes feel confounded by current trends and am just beginning to have that urge to shoo youngsters off my lawn.  Not that they are ever on my lawn.  They are generally at home, on MySpace or Facebook.

I think I understand the pull of social networking sites.  When I was a teenager, playing on my dad’s old Apple or, if he would let me, his spanking new 486 with an 8 color monitor, I would spend hours waiting to get into some local BBS with half a dozen phone lines so I could explore.  And it was exploring.  Back then, system running Angelfire, Wildcat, and MajorBBS were ahead of the game, with email, chat, message boards (then called forums) and games.  Ah, for the hours I wasted playing Tradewars :)

What made these work was the combination of discovery and socializing.  I knew the other folks who used the BBSs in my town.  I saw them on the forums and in the chat rooms.  We fought each other in Tradewars and Legend of the Red Dragon.  You met new friends and interacted in a unique environment (without the risk of getting stuffed into a locker at school, no less).

Social networking sites are just the latest incarnation of this.  Of course they are popular with teenagers; social networking is part and parcel of being a teenager.  My wife teaches college-level courses for high schoolers, and they are constantly sneaking onto MySpace or Facebook (or texting) during class.  Back in my day, we just passed notes.

I must admit to having recently signed up for a Facebook account.  It is neat to be able to look up old college buddies and see what people are doing and where they have ended up.  It is the 30-year-old’s equivalent of an octogenarian checking the obituaries every day for familiar names.  Of course, I have not yet stooped to a MySpace account.  If I wanted a scrolling background, embedded sound, and blinking, marquee text, I would go back to 1998 and build a website in Frontpage.