Digital Autobiography: My journey to digital literacy

Throughout the course of this semester, the material we’ve gone over has prompted me to think a great deal about my own digital literacy. I feel I’m part of one of the first generations to be nearly completely immersed in the world of the internet and computers. Like most women around my age, I feel my identity has hugely been shaped by technology, especially during my adolescents. Both of my parents worked long hours growing up, leaving me to turn to avenues like the internet and other media as a way to learn more about myself and shape my identity. Because of my situation growing up, I feel that I was especially affected by technology growing up, and I feel that I would be significantly different had I not had access to such resources.

Thinking back to my first experiences with the Internet, perhaps nothing represents this time to me better than American Online (AOL). AOL was responsible for making the Internet accessible for not only me but to millions of young girls around the country. I have vivid memories of my sister and I installing the AOL disc we received free in the mail onto my home computer while my father looked on when I couldn’t have been older than 10 or 11.

I remember the excitement of creating my first AOL screen name and feeling that it was a hugely important representation of my identity and me as a whole (I’ll never forget my first, somewhat embarrassing screen name, rgdangel89). From there, AOL opened a plethora of new ways for me to begin expanding on my digital literacy. With parental controls in place, I was exposed to message boards, chats, instant messaging and articles specifically heard towards my age group. Throughout the next few years, I found the Internet becoming a larger and larger part of my life. My sister, who was in high school when I was first becoming familiar with the Internet, was probably the most helpful person to me in terms of helping me become digitally literate. I can recall things like watching her type much faster than me, and wanting to try to model a lot of her behaviors related to computers. In 7^th grade I took a typing class at school, which I feel was a huge role in making me more digitally literate. Rather than pecking at the keyboard, I was now able to use a computer completely efficiently and seamlessly. At the same time, Internet technology was improving and it became faster and easier for me to interact on the Internet. I became interested in reading message boards, and connecting with other girls my age. On top of that, instant messaging became an important way for me to communicate with my friends. With that came the ever-important job of creating an AOL profile, and trying to express myself in 400 some odd characters. I feel like a lot of the time, these interactions hurt my self-esteem to some extent. From the websites and message boards I read, I began to compare myself to the other girls posting and often ended up feeling inadequate. For instance, I distinctly remember reading a website dealing with clothing and fashion and feeling completely horrible about myself and my appearance after. In addition to comparing myself with peers at school, I had a whole new group of thousands of girls to size myself up against on the Internet. Later in my middle school years, online journaling sites like Xanga and Livejournal became increasingly popular, and I found myself and many of my female friends become immersed in the communities. I feel like these sites benefited me positively despite my self-esteem problems, because they provided me with a way to express myself that I had not been able to previously. These websites allowed me to keep in touch of my friends, make new ones, and most importantly, develop writing, html coding and general computer skills that I might not have learned otherwise. I feel like unlike my other experiences with comparing myself with others, the experiences I had with online journaling were much more positive because I was creating something of my own. For the next few years I engaged myself in these sites, but in addition I began implementing the Internet into my academics more and more. At school, Internet research and typing papers became more and more important, and I found myself using my digital literacy skills increasingly more often. When things like the SATs and other exams came around, I was able to use the Internet to take practice tests and better my grades. Overall, in high school it was a very important tool when it came to academics, while in the past it had been a tool more for leisure. Today, I can’t imagine my life without the internet and it for everything from Facebook to readings blogs to writing papers. Its amazing how something I used to do for fun has come to make such an impact.

Digital literacy is undoubtedly one of the most important parts of my identity today. I spend such a huge amount of time on the computer at both school and work, and I can’t imagine doing any of the tasks necessary for either without being digitally literate. To me, digital literacy means being able to use my technology skills to learn more, protect myself and learn more. Furthermore, I feel incredibly lucky to have been born in an age where technology like computers is readily available for me to use to educate myself and make my life better and more productive.