Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 10, 1994 TAG: 9407080068
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Madelyn Rosenberg
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I got the news through e-mail. "I'm on my way to the hospital now," my cousin wrote. "More later."
It's been a few months since I wrote about my problems getting on the information superhighway. Now after some angst, help from the Blacksburg Electronic Village and a copy of Mosaic (free software that puts this Internet thing on my level) I'm cruising.
I'm also suffering from a severe case of information overload. And I'm enjoying "talking" daily with friends and relatives whom I used to speak to only once every few years.
My first week on-line, friends told me where to find the coolest information on the World Wide Web, a sort of map to the places or "sites" you can travel to on Internet. Through Mosaic, a web program, you can move around without even thinking about it; click on blue text and you're there.
There's a web site put out by MTV's Adam Curry. The latest issue of Mother Jones Magazine. Scripts of every Simpsons episode ever written. A news group for fans of "Beverly Hills 90210," TV's trendy teen soap. More news groups where people can post messages sounding off on everything from journalism to Generation X.
"I was in an Andy Griffith group for a while," one friend told me. "But they kicked me off; I wasn't Christian enough."
Late at night I've found my self scanning Web sites like I used to scan television channels, waiting for something to catch my eye.
The further away from home, the better. "Let's find something in French," my friend Jonathon said, wanting to test his mastery of the language. So we drove to a web site in the Sorbonne, the university in Paris.
With e-mail, too, I sought friends in far away places, thus upping the gee-whiz factor on what to me is new technology.
The only person I knew with e-mail my first week on-line was reporter Brian Kelley. He lives a few blocks from me. I see him all day at work. But the urge to e-mail was strong. I started messaging his wife, instead.
I found friends in Roanoke with e-mail. Still too close.
Then I found my friend Gretchen in Boston.
I messaged college chums in Florida and Wichita. My brother and his roomates got an account, a supplement to our once-a-week phone call.
"Do you have e-mail?" was my conversation opener at a recent family reunion. When I returned home, there was a novella waiting on my computer from my cousin Alan. "I know that this message seems to have been written haphazardly. It's just that I have a lot to tell you ... We seem to see each other once every five years or so. The messages will get clearer as time goes on."
And so they have.
I don't know why e-mail seems easier than writing or calling. Perhaps it's just the newness (or the cheapness). Perhaps it's the sense of immediacy, a click of the mouse and the message is on its way. No searching through fuzz-laden purses for stamps; no pressure to say everything in 20 minutes or less. It makes it easier to talk about the little things. A two line message from Alan when he got a 94 on his statistics test. A noodle recipe from Leigh Anne. A longer note from my brother after a day in Coney Island.
You can discuss everyday things, like plantar warts and bad moods - things you wouldn't stick in a letter or mention during expensive, long distance calls.
You build on things from there.
I know Alan better now that I've seen his life in black and white. The layout of his apartment. How much he misses his girl friend. He's visiting her this weekend and she doesn't have a computer.
In his last e-mail message, he wrote: "I'll call you when I get back."
Madelyn Rosenberg is the assistant New River editor for the Roanoke Times & World-News.
by CNB