Feb 20 - "Spiderman En Tu Fiesta": What I've Learnt From 50,000* Hours Of Surfing
By Stefano Blanca Sciacaluga
It's no mystery that for years my parents kept complaining I was spending too much time in front of a computer and asked whom I was talking to for so long. I didn't sit in front of a screen other than a television until relatively late; I must have been about eleven or twelve. Of course, for me that was quite early on, but considering children are practically born with an iPad under their arm these days, twelve was quite late to get involved. In the late 1990s and early 2000s kids my age were playing outside, socialising and doing their homework on paper; and at the time, on a rubbish dial-up modem (with the busy phone line, cheaper phone bills after certain hours and the screechy, horrible but adorable dial-up sound, that to some will sound like gibberish), only fast enough to run a little chat program called mIRC and very little more, it's understandable that my parents would complain that I was spending too much time in front of the computer. But I'm pretty sure a lot of people of my generation would agree, it was revolutionary, absolutely crazy and what has determined the way we use the Internet today.
I've always said people my age are in a completely different situation to everybody else: people older than us had to adapt to the Internet, people younger than us were born with ADSL modems at home and we grew up with the Internet, we've seen it become what it is. It's an interesting thing, the Internet. So I spent a couple of years talking on the Internet (which according to my parents has been a whole fifteen years) and once ADSL came along the floodgates opened. I was downloading music, films and before I knew it I ended up on this thing called Facebook and my mouse pointer was constantly hovered on this little thing called StumbleUpon. Now I don't know what other people my age were doing on the Internet, but I was having a whale of a time on this magical journey of discovery where new things kept cropping up all the time. It wasn't until I got to university at eighteen that my relationship with the Internet changed. Meeting new people meant there was more focus on networking, Facebook was a lot more developed and things like Twitter came about. Suddenly I was torn. Whereas before, my time on the Internet was spent in large, deep Wikipedia holes now I had to divide my time between social networking and YouTube videos of people falling over and academic articles and the occasional Wikibinge. It's around about this time that I started to think about Internet usage, how I was using it and how those around me were using it. I realised that whilst I would spend hours in university computer rooms looking through photography websites everybody around me was clicking through albums and albums of photos on Facebook.
So then came the iPhone. I was late to the iPhone game; a spent a good few years through university on rubbish phones that I didn't mind throwing across rooms but once I was out and had some money in my pocket it felt like I had to do it. And of course it changed the way I was using the Internet once more. There was this sudden compulsion to be on my phone all the time. Everybody around me was doing it, and still is. And I'm guilty of it. I'm guilty of grabbing my phone seconds after my table partner has got up to go the bathroom. I'm guilty of staring at my screen on public transport and I'm even guilty of using my phone to get out of talking to people I see down the street, pretending I'm on a phone call. It's bad. It's really, really bad. I thought there was something wrong when I realised I was signed up to every social network out there but realised it was worse than I thought when just a quick peek over anybody's shoulder confirmed that everybody is on every social network. We have become all about the Internet, we can't live without it and it's now, more than ever, that I've been thinking about how we use technology and the Internet.
I'm a firm believer (and mentioned it around here) that there's always a positive to take away from any negative situation. So between trying to cut back on the Internet and analysing how I use it myself, I've spent a long time observing other people's attitude towards it. And I've realised that in this Internet-driven world we live in, where we've all become iSheep (or whatever we call each other) there's still some beauty to how we use it. Yes, we might all be on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat but there's variety in the usage. There are those who spend most of their time on Facebook, ignoring that there's a wild world outside The Social Network, and those who prefer the 140 character limitations of Twitter, for serious posting or to have a few laughs. Just like there are those who want the world to see what they do via Instagram and those who want the world to see what they do, as in work, via Instagram. Or those who want everybody to know where they are and what they're doing and those who, like myself, only snap a select few in a more personal (as far as the Internet allows) and carefully chosen manner. 
And that's the beauty of it. Variety is the spice of life, and the many ways in which we decide to use the Internet and in particular social media is absolutely fascinating. I really wish I had more free time to explore the subject further. But in my limited time of observation I've written down a few points that I would like to share with you, to make your experience on the Internet a lot more pleasant, especially as I've come across a lot of people my age in some sort of disenchantment with this magnificent piece of technology some geeks have given us:
- The first and most important one: Don't look at your phone until you have left the bed, had breakfast, had a shower, got dressed for work or wherever you're going and left the house. Give yourself some time to take in life, breathe, hear and see other things and then you can go back to Facebook if you like. I used to lie in bed for fifteen or twenty minutes going through everything from emails to Pinterest. Get out of bed, give everything some time.
- Do some spring cleaning every once in a while. Think about all the people that can read and see everything you're doing on the Internet and all the things you're reading and seeing too. Do you need to know what people you haven't seen for five years are doing? They're probably feeling the same way. Time to go! I do it often on Facebook and try to keep my Twitter follows to a cool one hundred; any more than that and unless you're on it all day there's a lot you'll miss.
- Never forget there's more to the Internet. We're all guilty of it, we check all our social networks, skim-read one or two newspaper websites and then go back to social media to scroll for hours, waiting for new content to appear. Remember the phrase "you learn something new every day"? Well, learn something new every day. The Internet is full of useful information, find a website you've never been on, read about something you've heard of but don't know much about, listen to new music, watch new films, use the Internet to its full potential.
- Don't get caught up on your phone. We've all heard about that thing where everybody leaves their phone in the centre of the dinner table and first person to grab it pays. It's ridiculous, it's too much, let's just try to keep our phones in our bags and pockets when we don't need them. If you've made plans to meet up with somebody don't spend the whole time doing what you've been doing all day, scrolling through Facebook. Cherish real moments with people IRL.
- Every once in a while take a day or two off the Internet. I have to use the Internet for work but every once in a while I'll take a day off the Internet, especially social media. I'll go by my daily work-day routine but I won't waste time on social media. I'll use it for more useful things, like I mentioned in point three. Or I'll spend my time reading, a book. You'll feel great, I promise.
- Don't get caught up in negativity. If there's one thing I love about the Internet is how many funny people are in the world and how they can be funny to everybody, on the Internet. Seek out these funny people and funny websites, laugh hard until your face hurts, do it often, I do it at least once a day (you can ask me to point you in the right direction if you like). Just don't get caught up in negativity, ditch the pointless Facebook arguments and substitute them for a Twitter account full of 140-character gold, Jerry!
- And last but not least, despite everything I've said, do what makes you happy on the Internet. Of course, there will be people on your Facebook friends list who won't understand why you've shared a YouTube video of a guy dressed as Spiderman at a Mexican kid's birthday party, or what the hell that Instagram photo you've uploaded is meant to be. But don't stress, do what you like. If you want to watch ten seasons of a TV show because it's all on the Internet, that's cool. If you want to spend hours and hours searching for big bags of confetti on eBay, Amazon and Etsy that's fine! Trust me, I know.
I'm pretty sure there must be more, but I think this selection of seven points really covers a bunch of things that I think are important to keep in mind when it comes to spending time surfin'. I've found all of these to be very helpful, I really hope you do too; and please let me know how it goes!
(*approx.)
Stefano is an artist, photographer, translator and linguist. You can find more of his work at:
www.instagram.com/stefanoblanca
