Tech discourses are different even though they may seem the same. I’ve experienced a strange shift between two countries and new tech. This is what my experience has been before mobile internet.
The first time I ever saw a computer, I was seven. It was 1993. I was visiting my aunt and uncle in Bucharest for the weekend. They were undergrads, majoring in computer science. I played Lemmings for hours. It was really fun. No one understood my fascination with it except for my aunt and uncle, of course. That was the extent of my computer interaction for years to come. I later found out that it was donated from the UK to Romania, a post-communist newly rekindled relationship. Aid was coming in from the West in all shapes and sizes, and now in the form of tech.
In 1994, my parents immigrated to Canada. I lived with my grandparents for the year we lived apart. A year that was filled with phone calls — twelve to be exact. My mother recalls as I ask her to clarify the details, “Ana, we didn’t have the financial means to call you more than once a month. The calls cost $2 per minute.” Far from being sugar coated, this was their reality. I was nine when I boarded my first plane (to Amsterdam), and then my second to Vancouver. Those two flights of mine were solo. I reunited with my parents after a year of separation. It was 1995. I wrote letters to my friends back in Romania. I hated my new world, but eventually I got used to it. I adapted, integrated. It took time. But the letters and eventually phone calls helped to keep the links alive, between this new world and my old one. Ever since I immigrated to Canada I would visit Romania once every two to three years, for entire summers at a time.
I learned how to type on a Mac in elementary school. It was 1997. It was strange, and I felt strange. In general I still didn’t feel comfortable in my new world. It was even stranger being stuck with a bunch of kids that seemed to get the language, and the computers more than me. I was in grade 5 and still integrating in this new society.
We had dial-up installed in 1998. The connection was so bad that just waiting to get online felt like a miracle most times but I persevered. It was worth the wait, every time. I had discovered the web. I was an anonymous person in chat rooms talking to strangers. This may seem bizarre and creepy now, but then it was unchartered territories. I don’t remember our conversations. I do remember going back to Romania that summer and writing in my diary about missing the conversations I had with [nickname x, y, z]. A/S/L is how that conversation got started. I lied about my age and location. How would they really find out? My parents never knew, of course. I wasn’t allowed to be on the internet. But I made up excuses that I needed it for school assignments.
In both elementary and high school we had computers in the libraries and an entire class dedicated to them. But those weren’t any fun. Who likes being monitored by adults? The real fun started when I created my first email account. I was fourteen, and it was hotmail. That’s when the ultimate chat experience happened: MSN Messenger. People you knew were on it, not just strangers: your high school friends, crushes, enemies and anyone in between. I now was ‘officially’ allowed on the internet. Email was fun but not as exciting as instant chat. It was a brand new world. The instantaneous feeling of a message felt unreal. I think I owe my typing skills to those chat days. And ironically, not from my Research in Motion computer class — what kind of name is that anyway? I became more articulated in my thoughts. And I have the internet to thank for that. Eventually I had my own computer. A PC filled with songs. Music was everything. We didn’t have YouTube but we had Napster and it was awesome. It was also the year I had my own landline with call waiting. I discovered three-way calling. It was out of this world. I couldn’t wait to get home from school and spend hours on the phone. I remember once I had counted up to seven phone calls in one evening. Communication was a way to escape. I was in my teens, with a family life that was falling apart. Distraction was key, and friends were the best antidote.
In 2001, I went back to Romania for the summer. I remember helping my friends set up their first email accounts at an internet cafe, hotmail, naturally for email and MSN messenger. As we planned our future conversations, we realized the 10 hour time zone difference would work against us. It wouldn’t be so easy, as my friends did not have internet at home, so they would have to go to this internet cafe, the only one in the city. Back to that moment in time, I would wait in that internet cafe eagerly reading emails from my friends in Vancouver and writing them back. I loved emoticons, this new way of expressing yourself outside of words. As my friends and I were setting up new email accounts together, while at the same time I was writing emails to friends an ocean away. It felt surreal. I recalled memories from when we were kids, running around, tech never being on our mind. Just electricity. We didn’t even use a phone. We used to knock on each other’s doors, since we lived in the same apartment building, door-to-door. Over time, my Romanian writing got worse, as I didn’t practice it with anyone in Vancouver. I would read my grade three essays in awe wondering how I wrote them to begin with. But thankfully, emailing with my Romanian friends helped me practice my Romanian in writing.
That same summer, I had the chance to explore a city for the first time, alone. I was in Paris for two weeks. I stayed with family friends who had day jobs. I was out and about, with only a map, a phone number and address — all paper. That was liberating. It was my first moment of independence. Sure I got lost, and had to retrace my steps, but having that phone (landline) number was reassuring enough for me.
I had my first mobile phone in 2003. I was seventeen and it was an LG flip phone. I used to look into that screen for hours as I would form new words on that neon green backlight. Texting was so painful back then but I still managed to write what felt like essays. Fast forward to a year later, when I graduated high school, anxious to leave Vancouver, to go back to Paris, then Romania again. This was my third vacation spent back in the motherland since moving to Canada. I had left my mobile phone behind, as I had no overseas long distance plan, and no option to switch SIM cards. Oh, good ol’ Canadian telecoms. I comforted myself with the thought of calling cards and internet cafes.
When I arrived, my friends all had mobile phones. My friends in Romania taught me about the world of beeps: a free way to communicate. They explained to me that if they would call someone and let it ring just once before hanging up, they would not get charged. A one ring call meant someone was thinking of you. It was a hello. If we had plans to meet, and were already outside their house, a beep would also let them know that we were waiting for them. It was a nice sentiment. A wordless communication, which I was fascinated by.
My journey in between these two worlds taught me the complex process of communication and technology. How fast tech and the internet changes, and how to adapt. This drastic shift continues to revolutionize my world and ours.
