Growing up, writing and reading were always things I
did for myself. Aside from reading and writing for school, these were things I
enjoyed doing and saw them as a hobby. These seeds were planted from very early
on in my life. My father was a knowledge-hungry person and instilled in my
sisters and me the importance of an education. I grew up hanging out in the
children’s book room in my public library. My fondest early reading experiences
were born there, in that colorful, circular book room. I always felt so happy
and a peace reading book after book after book, hours on end, lying in the
empty tub whimsically placed in the center of the children’s room. Reading was
a very personal activity for me, as well as writing when I started my diary at
the age of about ten. However, as I have gotten older, I have explored the
option of writing for others. I feel as though I have grown up alongside the
internet. As the years passed, the internet became and more of a place where
people exchanged ideas.
“Yes!
We’re going to the library!” Looking back, I spent so much time in that empty
tub with my nose stuck in a book. I also looked forward to making new friends,
because I always met someone new in the children’s room. I remember reading and
playing simultaneously, if that makes any sense. So, reading and spending time
in the library was social as well as personal. My father would take us over the
weekends mostly, because he thought it was a much better use of our time than
just sitting in front of the TV, “making holes in the couch”, as he would put
it. This made sense to me, considering that reading was something I would
observe my father doing a lot of at home. Sometimes after work, he would sit in
the dining room after we finished dinner, reading the newspaper or pages of the
encyclopedia. I remember once when my father taught himself how to change the
engine oil in his car by simply reading through a mechanic manual. These were
some of the examples I observed early on that communicated to me the power of
knowledge, and how reading could be a powerful tool to that end.
As
far as writing, my grade school teachers help build a lot of confidence in my
skills. Every year, I would always hear from my teachers how great a job I did
on the writing projects. From writing reading responses and poems, to learning
formal essay structure in the fifth grade, writing was something that seemed to
come natural to me. The enthusiasm was fueled by the positive feedback and
grades I received from my teachers. Can you believe I actually looked forward
to spelling and grammar tests?! Growing up, I didn’t feel comfortable with my
peers reading my writing, despite the positive feedback of my teachers. I
started a diary around the age of ten, writing inside it on and off. I wrote
when I felt happy, sad, or confused. Writing was something that helped organize
my most intimate thoughts, and gave me a space to talk about things I felt that
I just could not tell a soul.
It was when I was
introduced to the formal essay structure in the fifth grade that I really
started to dabble with using the computer as a means to present my writing, and
I was using the internet just to play games. It never occurred to me that you
could use the internet to share your work for others to see. I was aware of the
communicative power of the internet, like chat rooms, and sometimes used
instant messaging to talk to friends. Buddy lists was all anyone would talk
about in middle school.
My freshman
year of high school, MySpace seemed to come kind out of nowhere. It was like, I
just came to school one day and all of a sudden everyone had a MySpace page. “Do
you have a MySpace?” my friends asked. I said no, and everyone was explaining
to me why I should. I remember my best friend at the time didn’t have a MySpace
either, so I guess that is why I never really caved into the pressure, along
with fact that it just didn’t interest me. Then I began to see many of my peers
utilizing MySpace as a tool to say heinous things about people they were not
comfortable saying face to face. So this deterred me further from social
networking, but I think it also blocked me from seeing the other useful aspects
it, and exploring other online avenues to communicating and sharing your work,
such as blogs.
I
didn’t dabble with this until after high-school. As I went further in in my
collegiate studies, there was an increasing emphasis on writing for an
audience, and how the internet is a useful tool for this. I wasn’t until a
couple of semesters ago, when I started taking my English writing classes, that
I have fully explored writing for others. As I said before, writing was
something I did for myself. Taking creative writing classes, I realized the
importance of work shopping, and how showing your work to others can be very
helpful. This is where the internet comes in. I realized that people become very
opinionated online. If you want to be a great writer, you have to tie the
attitudes and beliefs of your audience to your own in order to truly be
effective. This is how the internet has influenced my perception of reading and
writing.
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