I first started using the internet at age 10, which was 4 years after it began according to that notice we all got on Facebook today. My parents both worked at small time server companies which used to provide your dial up before the huge monopolizing giants that exist today. I actually remember being 14 and diving into Photoshop, version 2 I think it was, to make what later would be dubbed "memes" a decade later. Of course back then you had to join web rings to get your website viewed by other people. You also had to build the html from scratch yourself. Even funnier was the constant fight over landline, which was the entire households only phone. I was seriously addicted, I couldn't stay off. I would be blocking the phone line all night. My mom became so frustrated that she eventually installed a second line just for the internet.
These days you can find all sorts of information on a person by their name. Back then it was easy to hide in the ambiguity of screen names, made one feel safe enough to open up. I sure blogged up a storm, mostly poetry. Chat rooms were the highlight of my social life. Instant messengers like ICQ and yahoo were my connections to the outside world. While the first couple years was all playing games on riddler.com and looking up items of interest I dived into learning html at 12 daydreaming of being a hacker, but not knowing a thing about actual computer code. Never learned it either. I ended up becoming an artist instead.
