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There's a lot to say about the Internet of the eighties and nineties. For starters, it was much simpler. While graphical UIs were still finding their sweet spot with users, plain text reigned supreme. And, in a way, literacy was a mark of pride in this elitist, uncultured sense that many of us associate with the early days of our online presences.
Some time between here and there, many of us seem to have forgotten all that. I'm not sure if it was with the proliferation of the visual web or the invention of Quicktime and Flash, but something is clearly different about the web of today: it's noisy. Very noisy. And this constant battle for attention as we all come together online has caused us, in the words of Rands, to know more people less -- that is, less about more people.
It's fitting, then, that I've retreated from all of this noise back to journalspace. Only a scant time after I left with a hastily-rendered goodbye, here I am again, for exactly the reasons I originally laid out. And I feel empowered for the experience, because I now know another system that almost worked, revealing more of the whole.
( In which I discuss how we learn and communicate, with less self-deprecating angst than I've displayed in the past. Yes, I'm feeling a bit better now. )
Some time between here and there, many of us seem to have forgotten all that. I'm not sure if it was with the proliferation of the visual web or the invention of Quicktime and Flash, but something is clearly different about the web of today: it's noisy. Very noisy. And this constant battle for attention as we all come together online has caused us, in the words of Rands, to know more people less -- that is, less about more people.
It's fitting, then, that I've retreated from all of this noise back to journalspace. Only a scant time after I left with a hastily-rendered goodbye, here I am again, for exactly the reasons I originally laid out. And I feel empowered for the experience, because I now know another system that almost worked, revealing more of the whole.
( In which I discuss how we learn and communicate, with less self-deprecating angst than I've displayed in the past. Yes, I'm feeling a bit better now. )
