By: Stephanie Courtney

Stephanie Courtney — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 05:59:54 +0000

This is very interesting to read because in the last month or so I’ve changed my mind about the internet, my personal relationship to it, and it’s power as a social tool. I have worked in SEO and as a copywriter for about 4 years now and NEVER did anything online but research and (rarely) shopping – until about 3 weeks ago. I moved to Ireland from California almost a year ago, and friends begged me to get onto Facebook – I did just a few weeks ago and am connected to colleagues, former students, friends and family all over the globe. As a reclusive person, this has become my way into the world. I feel connected to a life outside my door in a way I never have before – and the connection feels good because I have the ability to control how I deport myself, how much I want to engage and how often. Because people from so many very disparate aspects of my life see my Twitter posts, I tend to think before I spew and it keeps me honest (it’s hard to embelish how big that fish was when the person who caught it with you is also getting the post). I actually see myself in one world online instead of in the fragmented, splintered social groupings I tend to engage in in ‘real’ life (I’m sure my SEO colleagues shake their heads when I post about Shakespeare and vice versa). The thing that has changed my mind the most about the internet is in how the Obama campaign has embraced and is using the net as a political tool, and by doing so, is able to reach out to so many different communities. As a memember of the arts community, which the campaign has tapped into online, I feel championed and excited, used (in all the right ways), visible (which has never happened before), and I feel (whether it’s true or not) that I have access and a voice. I have run from the net most of my life, now that I’ve embraced it I realize the negative image I had of it was very biased and not based in fact or experience. Case in point, I used to think the net would be the end of the written word, the truth is I write more online than I ever have in all my letters, journals or anything else – oh, and I read more now, too. Funny, isn’t it. I think they were saying the same things about the printing press in the 15th Century. So, though I would have agreed with this kind of pessimism a month ago before I was using, I certainly don’t anymore.

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By: Stephanie Courtney