|
On the Road With Cybergrrl... Digital Camera |
v o i c e s
Have tape recorder, digital camera (from Olympus) and laptop with modem. What else does a grrl need? Stardate 021798, Cybergrrl's Log: Los Angeles, CA I'm back on track with the interviews. Here's what LA women had to say. Jennifer Murray, legal assistant
I asked Jennifer, a recent college graduate, what she thinks of the Internet and here is what she had to say: "It is still a bit foreign to me, but I'm always impressed with how much information I can get off of it when I do bother to look. I think it's pretty exciting. When I asked her what she looks up on the Internet, she said, "Sometimes news, on the Internet prior to finding it on television or in the papers, it will be there first and I like that. One recent rock star suicide that I rushed to the computer to find out about and it was there due to global time differences. The Internet was my most efficient means of finding information. Travel information, looking up places, seasonal sites or timing a vacation just right so you're not visiting some place when it's the complete off-season. Things like that I find pretty helpful. Stocks - actually I've done a lot of research about financial investments on the Internet. That's been very helpful and I find it to be less intimidating, particularly in an arena like money, where I think oftentimes women feel intimidated to ask questions about how to invest or what to invest in and I think the Internet is a really great way for someone to take as much time as they need to do the research." "Unfortunately I didn't find the Internet to be as helpful as I'd hoped it would be on more literary research and maybe I wasn't looking in the right places so that might be another problem. I still found the good old fashioned library to be better for that." Stardate 021898, Cybergrrl's Log: Los Angeles, CA
When I asked Brigitte if she was online, she immediately replied "Absolutely not." I asked her if she had ever been online. "One time in my life on my friends computer." What did she think of the Internet then? "It was scary, I kept thinking that I was going to ruin my friend's computer and lose all of her memory or information. I really didn't know what I was doing. And I knew that it was simple and I felt intimidated that everyone said it was so simple and I was completely mortified by it. But I got through. I emailed my sister. And I realized that if it was something I practiced, I could get the hang of it. It was just intimidating, it was like this huge monster that I'd never come into contact with before and I knew I had to tame it because the rest of the world had and I hadn't. I think it's just a big intimidation factor. Like when you learn a language in school but you never get to speak it. Then you meet a Frenchman and you need to speak to him and you speak perfectly. But it intimidates you." "I think it's amazing. It really is a little bit like another world for me. Because what I don't get about computers and the Internet is that I think people stop living their lives a bit. My perception is that people don't go outside anymore and interact in real life, they're sitting at these computers and that to me is terrifying. But what I do think is amazing is this information that people have - they're just so much ahead of people that don't have it. Just airline tickets - whatever - or contacting someone across the world - or being able to look at something going on in Japan at the Olympics right now. It's mind blowing but my great fear is that you get so into it or so involved with it that you don't live. I do, I have this extreme fear that our children are never going to speak to each other but through this contraption. But I do think it's amazing but it's a big void, mystery, it's like the Bermuda Triangle. I know it's really cool but I don't know what the hell it is." |
