Twentieth Century Girl in a Twenty-First Century Tech World

I admit it – I’m an unashamed tech geek. Since turning 18, I have owned the following:

• Five computers
• Seven mobile phones
• Three MP3 players
• Three digital still cameras
• One digital video camera
• One iPod

I update my tech whenever it wears out, or when I can afford to buy something a bit faster and shinier. For example, back in February I upgraded from my almost-two-year-old, still working but very slow and temperamental laptop that overheated and froze constantly, to a very shiny, lightning fast monster of a laptop that can run all the games and applications my heart desires, has ample space to store my music collection (including the music podcast I subscribe to, 20.18GB and counting), photographs, the files for my website and all the stories I'm working on, and holds up very well to being carted between home and TAFE twice a week. (My mother now owns my old laptop and curses it on a daily basis.) I get a new mobile phone whenever the battery on my latest handset begins to wear out, my justification being that it's cheaper to buy an entirely new phone than to replace the battery. My current phone (a Motorola KRZR K1) was purchased last February, but at some point I'd like to upgrade to a Blackberry. After Easter I will begin saving for a brand new, seventh-generation 160GB iPod, to replace my sixth-generation 80GB Classic that broke just before TAFE began this year.

Considering that I am only just now about to turn 26, that’s a lot of gear in the space of less than a decade!

I am also very well-versed in the world of social networking. I have accounts on Facebook, Twitter and LiveJournal, along with a number of email addresses, and barring any interruptions to my home wireless Internet I am connected to all three sites on a daily basis.

Twitter receives most of my attention – since signing up at the end of January 2009, I have racked up more than 6,000 tweets (yes, I am very proud of this number!) and am following slightly more than 200 other users, all but 84 of which are following me back. I tend to steer clear of using the Twitter site to update my account, instead making use of a program called TweetDeck. Many of my favourite musicians, comedians, authors and actors have Twitter accounts – my favourite accounts are owned by the bands Hanson and 30 Seconds To Mars (with 30 Seconds To Mars’ members having their own individual accounts that I also follow), and the actors Nathan Fillion and Misha Collins. I keep myself deliberately ignorant of celebrity gossip, and so Twitter has become my favourite way of keeping track of what the celebrities I am fans of are up to. This is generally because anything they’re tweeting about tends to be a lot more accurate and reliable than what can be found in magazines or elsewhere on the Web. Twitter also helps me stay connected to my friends who live elsewhere in Australia and around the world. As many of the tweeters I follow are fellow writers, it’s a quick and easy way to get updates for their stories.

I also spend quite a bit of time on LiveJournal, which is the Web’s largest online journal network. I have been a LiveJournal member since 2003, back when the site was still invitation-only, and have owned my current paid-for account since 2004. Likewise with Twitter, it’s all about connecting with friends both new and old, the difference being that I use Twitter for quick updates, and LiveJournal for longer, more thoughtful posts. LiveJournal is also where I post my writing in the first instance, before any new chapters are uploaded to my website, and has resulted in a wider audience for my work. I keep access to my LiveJournal restricted to those already on my contact list, the only public posts being chapters of my stories and an entry where other users request access to my journal (and where I can accept or reject on a case-by-case basis), and so I can be a little more open than I would be elsewhere on the Web.

Unlike Twitter and LiveJournal, however, where I am more than happy to follow and befriend people I don’t already know, I use Facebook strictly for keeping in contact with family, friends within Australia and from overseas that I have met on other sites, TAFE classmates, and old classmates from high school. I didn’t join until September 2007, and until then was very reluctant to do so – it was my penfriend who encouraged me to sign up, so that we could keep in touch between letters. In recent months old friends from the first high school I attended have located me (even though my name on Facebook is slightly different to that which they knew me by), and I’ve also reconnected with my cousins in England. I don’t play games on Facebook very often, or even visit regularly (instead preferring to update my status using TweetDeck), but I collect badges (through an application called Pieces of Flair), test my knowledge of TV shows and movies I like, and connect with other members through Facebook groups that I’ve joined.

I honestly don’t see any of the tech I use as a detriment. I know when it’s time to disconnect, and even though I love being connected to the wider world I am able to switch off when I need to. I have to sleep sometime, after all! ;)