I’ve been reading the various Newly Digital pieces with interest. The ones I’ve read so far have been uniformly great, and if you haven’t checked it out, you really owe it to yourself to do so. I’ve thought about writing my own, but well, for some reason, it seems hard for me to pin down something worth writing. Also, I’m a lazy bastard. I mean, take a look at the state of this site.
Incidentally, my original undergratudate application essay was about how BBS’s changed my world-view. In fact, the discovery of the digital experience has been an intermittently recurrent theme. Most recently, in fact, is a paper that I wrote early this morning for my CTCS 505 (Survey of Interactive Media) class. Here’s the syllabus prompt:
Technology First Encounter Essay: Recall the first time you encountered a particular media technology and analyze how you anticipated, interacted with, and utilized the technology. It will be useful to consider how your use of previous media technologies influenced how you approached the new technology, as well as how that technology eventually influenced future media technology usage. Words: 1500
Due: Tuesday, June 3rd at beginning of class.
Here’s a very slightly modified version of the essay (cleaned up a few passages, filled out the selected bibliography). It’s still a bit of the mess (it’s been a looong time since I’ve had to write an academic paper, and it shows), but despite cheese and awkward construction, I think it touches on (and summarizes) some stuff that might be of more general interest: Some Thoughts on the World Wide Web. [20KB PDF]