E-mail: lauren.strapagiel@ryerson.ca 

Twitter: laurenstrapa

Delicious: LaurenStrapa

How I Communicate

I’m one of those overly-connected Generation Y types you keep hearing about.

I text, I check Facebook at least fifteen times a day, I’ve blogged, I’ve tweeted, I’m far more likely to instant message someone than call them, I had a MySpace when it was still cool. I’m at the point where e-mail seems passé. I haven’t put my BlackBerry down since I got it last month.

Yeah, I’m one of those people.

The “media,” to use that ominous term, can’t seem to decide if the rise of digital society has been a miracle in connectivity and citizen participation or the downfall of the illiterate masses. But I’ve never really seen it as either.

Having grown up with a computer at my disposal for as long as I can remember, this whole social networking thing is nothing new. From Neopets to GaiaOnline, I was online and socializing while my teacher’s were still going over the basics of an essay outline. I made my first website at age 13 on Angelfire web hosting, building the site from scratch with Visual Page. I posted quotes from my favourite bands and, in keeping with the teenage tradition of angst, postedpublished terrible, terrible poetry.

The internet gave me a space that I always thought of as a digital extension of so called “real life.” It wasn’t a separate entity, a place you went at the end of the day and then put aside. [AWK] My online activities was just who I was turned into HTML and CSS. I think this is the thing that older generations of internet naysayers never understood.

I also reject the notion that cell phones and social networking are killing the writing abilities of my generation. My online activities have given me more of a window to write freely than my education ever did. Without the limitations of thesis statements and five 5 paragraph rules, I was able to develop a unique, comfortable writing style. Sure, school gave me some building blocks that will always be useful, but I wholeheartedly believe that my time on the web made me a better writer and a better all around communicator.

And frankly, I think that all my supposed over-connectedness is going to come in real handy when I graduate. While the print industry sinks itself further into a hole of bankruptcy and digital ineptitude, I’m hoping that my ability to navigate the online world will allow me to be part of the new wave of young journalists that will save the industry. That’s the plan anyway. Ask me again later how that turns out.

My life online has left behind a trail of dead accounts and abandoned blogs, but has given me the ability to express myself the way I do. I can be short, concise and witty. I’ve lost any taste I may have once harboured for long-form essay writing, but who needs it? The online world is offering far more than pencil and paper and I’m happy to dive in.