The Outernet

00:00:00 Parker Sloan

I'm Parker Sloan, and I’m here with…

00:00:05 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Doctor Kaniqua Robinson, professor of Anthropolog

00:00:08 Parker Sloan

And today, we're going to be discussing your anecdotal evidence or your personal experiences with the access to Internet as a black woman.

00:00:16 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Right, right.

00:00:18 Parker Sloan

So one of the first questions I have and these questions that I have to keep pretty or all the same across all the interviews, right? So we get similar answers.

00:00:28 Parker Sloan

So the first question I have

00:00:31 Parker Sloan

Is what was your first interaction with the Internet and if you can remember when or how did this interaction occur?

00:00:36 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

That was nice. OK, I think it starts with my first interaction with the computer, right? So when I was in high school, no, it was, I think it was middle school or high school. I think it was like late middle high.

00:00:51 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

There was a summer program and at the summer program, they teach you how to build computers and at that program, you know, I did not really learn how to build computers, but I tried. You get a free computer and part of that process was accessing the Internet. So that was my first time. It was at a summer camp.

00:01:09 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

But I never owned the computer of my own, so even when we received the older computer as a gift or a prize for finishing the program, I brought it home. But there was nothing I can do with it because I didn't have Internet at home because also we didn't have money to pay for the Internet.

00:01:30 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

And at that point in my life, it was.

00:01:33 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

It wasn't really a need and I had a word processor for typing up papers, but we didn't really access the Internet at home, but by high school. I did have access to the Internet through the library and that is where I would say the first how I gained access to it. But.

00:01:54 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Even then, I wasn't

00:01:56 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Depending on it because we only had a few computers at in the library, so you pretty much had to sign up to even use the computer. So I relied a lot on books on paper things, and the Internet was not a crux for me. That didn't happen till later in my life in grad school. So yeah.

00:02:15 Parker Sloan

So you mentioned that you.

00:02:17 Parker Sloan

at home you weren't able to pay for the access to Internet, so that computer was kind of useless. Would you say that is a result

00:02:23 Parker Sloan

Of history just from black history in America, just like where you like, stuck in a very poverty black neighborhood. And would you say that your neighbors also did not have access to Internet for that same reason?

00:02:34 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Right, so I grew up in a working poor community. Mm-hmm. Well, you know, families working in full time but still was not making enough. And so money is not going towards.

00:02:44 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Computers and also we didn't really know a lot about computers. Anyway, if you didn't go to that program, I went to. It's only had like maybe 15 people because.

00:02:54 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Our schools didn't provide that opportunity. We were in, you know, we didn't have those charter private schools. They had a wealth of funding. So even access to simple computers was like a privilege to us. And many of us didn't even have the computer skills to even engage with computer outside of playing games.

00:03:14 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

I didn't really, truly become proficient in computers until my senior year in college, so.

00:03:21 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

And in my community again, we didn't have a need for a computer because we're doing with other things. And so the Internet was far, far from that. That was like the Internet. I don't care. Oh, did you go blah, blah. Like, we don't care.

00:03:33 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

About that like.

00:03:35 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Can I take my paper on this? But then who's going to print it? Oh, is that ink? So you got a computer?

00:03:41 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Then you have to buy a printer. Please go to the library. So we will go to the local library and you had one for librarians will help you. But that was not it would be really depended on hardcover book, hardback books or like, well, not hardback, but.

00:03:57 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Books materials to really find information.

00:04:01 Parker Sloan

Yeah. So you mentioned probably just more prevalent issues in your Community that you care that you and your community care more about than just getting on the Internet.

00:04:06 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Right, exactly. So it's like we didn't care about learning about what's going on over there. We are even learning through this electronic innovation. We were like, OK, so do we have food, do we have these things? But again, we understood the importance of knowing technology, but we didn't have access to knowing.

00:04:26 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Acknowledging you can see that even in some communities today who are economically, you know.

00:04:32 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Handicapped or economically vulnerable at this point, or this enfranchise where you don't? You go to the the schools and they don't have many laptops. The one thing that we really saw, we saw that really during COVID when you see, OK, well, you want these students to work online, but they don't have the Internet. So you see.

00:04:52 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Students at in McDonald's or sitting outside of restaurants to get access to the Internet. So even though Internet is prevalent now, it's still hard to get access to it because it's expensive. So definitely back then. Growing up, Internet was far, far, far more.

00:05:10 Parker Sloan

Yeah.

00:05:11 Parker Sloan

So you mentioned you first got your like real access Internet in your high school library. Yeah, even when you did have that access, that Open Access and you able to get on it, did you feel it was easily accessible for you or did you feel like you still had to jump through some hurdles to get what you need to need it done? Or did you feel like once it was in high school, when you were in that?

00:05:32 Parker Sloan

Area it was pretty pretty OK.

00:05:36 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

I don't.

00:05:36 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

It was more accessible but not easily accessible. I would say that, but also by that time and even during that time I depended on other things to get information more so than the Internet and so even as the countries moving forward, the our school did not have the resources for us to move forward with it.

00:05:58 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

So even like. Yeah, like I said, I may have we had computers, but.

00:06:04 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

That I wasn't really dependent on it by that time, and I wasn't aware of how quickly the the technology was going, how vast the Internet was. So yeah.

00:06:17 Parker Sloan

And then also now that we talked about getting access to the Internet once you were using the Internet, now we're talking about you know your use in just people's uses in general, did you feel that you had any negative societal pressure against you or against your community or against your people associated with the use of the Internet? Did you feel like you weren't, didn't feel like people didn't want you to use the Internet?

00:06:39 Parker Sloan

4.

00:06:41 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

I I don't think it's people who didn't want me to use the Internet.

00:06:45 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

It was more or less the.

00:06:48 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Going back to access like, I couldn't really access it until later in life and again, to me it goes back to computers I didn't have access to computers and so I didn't rely on it. When I finally did.

00:07:00 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Like in college?

00:07:04 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

I don't feel I was in the learning phase while people were all really indeed developed or the advanced phase. So even like for example, if I'm in the college with you, you're like, Oh yeah, you can just Google this and do this stuff. I'm like, so if you hit control, Alt delete, does that mean it restarts or does that?

00:07:23 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Racist things. So I was back. I was still learning how to use the computer and then, you know, one thing, once I got, you know, used to the computer and start to learning about what's there accessing black history was difficult because I didn't know where to.

00:07:39 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Look, I didn't know. Like, OK, well, can I put in African American? And what I need will come up because a lot of times it's almost like black history was under a firewall, like, perpetually under firewall. And so we were going back to and you see, my office got a lot of books still. Like, yeah, you had Internet.

00:07:56

Yeah.

00:07:59 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

But we didn't have all these resources we have now because even the black journals were not accessible. And so you go to the library like can I get the Journal of African American History, which was the first journal created through Black organization for the black experience? Oh, we don't have that. Or we have the last one.

00:08:16 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

So even access to some of the the black information was scanned at best. So once I finally got access to it, you know my my research with African history, African American studies since undergrad, it still was difficult because there was always perpetual firewall in front of getting information.

00:08:36 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

And I would still have to rely on books instead on the.

00:08:38 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Internet for a while.

00:08:41 Parker Sloan

I can see how that I can see that because we're also seeing it, but.

00:08:42 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Mm-hmm.

00:08:45 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Today you got it.

00:08:46 Parker Sloan

Because of the recent DUI attacks and the removal of, I think the most recent one I thought I could remember is the removal of the AI initiatives on the military, the the rapture of LGBT, Black and Mexican, and other races, their history in the military on off government websites.

00:08:57 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Hmm.

00:09:01

Right.

00:09:05 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Right, right.

00:09:06 Parker Sloan

So even this kind of goes into my next question. I was going to say, how do you think it has evolved in respect to easier accessibility and fairness?

00:09:15 Parker Sloan

We could see that it has evolved. You could get into it, get access a lot easier, but accessing certain information may still be difficult due to. In this example, our current government situation. So do you still? So I'm assuming you probably think there's still much work that needs to be done when it comes to accessing black history and just black people getting access to.

00:09:18 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Yeah.

00:09:25 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Right.

00:09:35 Parker Sloan

The Internet.

00:09:35 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Yes, absolutely.

00:09:38 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

One thing I wanted to say I I advance in regards to education, so I got more access to the Internet and to information my sister doesn't have the Internet at her home, so she's still the whole access grant. She can use her phone, but that's not have the same access that I have one thing.

00:09:57 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

About that, I really I love about being academic institutions. You have a wealth of information around you, but if the Internet says we would no longer make these journals available through J.

00:10:09 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

We would no longer have this available through what is it, world cat, whatnot. Yeah. But if we say we don't want this development anymore, then someone could shut that. Now you no longer have access to that. And then you hope that you can do interlibrary loan to get some of this stuff, but you may not be able to do so.

00:10:31 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

You want to do a Google search about Smithsonian today? I don't know more about black history. Next thing you know, they sit down the whole website.

00:10:39 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

So The thing is, and I appreciate the advancement in technology Internet, but we have become so reliant on it that I fear that there's a population of people who do not know how to do research otherwise because to control information, you control the community. And so that's one of the things which I grew up in where.

00:11:00 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

I read the books.

00:11:01 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Where I have the books, if I can't get online, I guess I'll buy.

00:11:04 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

The.

00:11:04 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Book or I guess I'll have to look other way.

00:11:08 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

But I feel like over time, we're able to get more access in this beautiful, but also we are vulnerable to people limiting set access and that that's my fear in understanding black history like you said, and not just black history, indigenous history.

00:11:26

Mm-hmm.

00:11:28 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

The limitations that we have and even in addition to that, how someone can go in and change our history.

00:11:36 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

How quickly that is happening, right? And I'm gonna put out something random slash not random like the Gulf of America. How it's changed on Google. But other sources said, are you serious? Is go from Mexico like something simple? Not simple. Something extreme like that can happen to so many has happened. And so many other.

00:11:56 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Situations like, even with the National Park Service online, what's available? So the the negative nature of having so much access to the Internet.

00:12:06 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

That it's the fact that we can it could be readily cut off and then some people who have who were not raised like me, where we have to go look at, look up stuff, look up books and actually go to library and use the Dewey Decimal system to find books would be.

00:12:23 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Kind of and disadvantaged, right? Because then it's like, well, they may have shut down online, but I can pull this book right here and I.

00:12:31 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Can get the.

00:12:32 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Same information, or at least I know what sources I.

00:12:35 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Can go to, yeah.

00:12:37 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Are we training people to work outside of technology or are we becoming so reliant on technology where the Internet becomes a lifeline? That's my fear as things evolve because like you said, like I just said 2 seconds ago, as time evolves.

00:12:54 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

More people have control over our access to knowledge.

00:12:57 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

So how do we limit that? And also if you have control over my access to knowledge, you have control over me.

00:13:05 Parker Sloan

The lack of knowledge is the ability to control those and those that have more knowledge can control it from knowledge, and that could be the crux of the reason why at first it was hard to get.

00:13:17 Parker Sloan

Internet and also now how it's so easy to access and now it's hard to find the information that.

00:13:22 Parker Sloan

Isn't in the Internet that?

00:13:23 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Is.

00:13:24 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

And then the same access that I had issues with the same issues with access I had earlier continues just in a different way.

00:13:31 Parker Sloan

Listen.

00:13:34 Parker Sloan

Ongoing battle.

00:13:35 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Right.

00:13:36 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

So I think I love the advancement technology, but again.

00:13:44 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Someone can also control our knowledge. Tell us what we need to know. Tell us what we don't need to know. Control the book. Well, not the books, but control you to control social media. All these places where younger people learn can be easily manipulated.

00:14:02 Parker Sloan

And that's just.

00:14:03 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

And then what?

00:14:05 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

I mean, that's so that's my fear.

00:14:08 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

And again, their benefits there. But I I want to go back to printed stuff, but also financially we can't always go back to printing stuff. It's like a cash swing too at every corner, right, we want more people in low income communities as we saw in COVID to have access to computers because that's the next days of life.

00:14:28 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

The issue with.

00:14:28 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

That is, we're not teaching how to operate in the world without just relying on computers. When the power, and again, I'm not not trying to sound conspiracy theorists, I'm not doing that. But if, like the power goes out.

00:14:35 Parker Sloan

Yeah.

00:14:44 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

How do you how do you manage and not the power? Not all electricity, but the Internet goes down.

00:14:51 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

There's all our knowledge. Where's our knowledge? You'll live, if you will still do.

00:14:54 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

MHM.

00:14:55 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

It's just that we have issues with the Internet, right?

00:14:57 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Now on campus.

00:14:59 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

That means you got to type it up, print it turned into me. Oh, I can't because the Internet is out and I don't have access to these resources.

00:15:07 Parker Sloan

And that's just on campus. And this is a.

00:15:12 Parker Sloan

You know, it's just it's this pretty rich.

00:15:16 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Schools, yeah.

00:15:18 Parker Sloan

Lots of technology, lots of advancements, lots of. Well, not much government funding.

00:15:25 Parker Sloan

Another day.

00:15:26 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

That's another conversation can happen part Part 2, but yeah.

00:15:30 Parker Sloan

And that's still happening even in non perished.

00:15:33 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Communities. Exactly. Yeah, those are few.

00:15:36 Parker Sloan

Well, I really appreciate this.

00:15:39 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Of course, I hope it makes sense, but I'm so happy that you're bringing this issue up because I think there's several points we still have barrier to, not barriers to knowledge.

00:15:50 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

We still have barriers to accessing.

00:15:55 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Computers and then the Internet even today, like I told you, like even if I go back home to where I was raised, you still have households who don't don't have access.

00:16:05 Parker Sloan

Yeah. And you mentioned your sister does.

00:16:06 Parker Sloan

You have Internet.

00:16:06 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

That's doesn't have Internet.

00:16:09 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

She doesn't have. I mean, I need to get her computer, though. I just got this on me. I promised her that I blame this me, but like, she still does not have the Internet because it's not cheap to have something that we're so used.

00:16:21 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Because we all know what happened with spectrum, how everything went to like 80 something dollars a.

00:16:26 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Month and people.

00:16:26 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Like, oh, I can't. So again, even the Internet now, though, is widely used and necessary because Wi-Fi is key, some homes still don't have it.

00:16:37 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

And then what?

00:16:38 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

But then allowed. So again we are so reliant on Internet and Internet tells a lot about some of the resources we need. But if people don't have access to the Internet to even access those resources.

00:16:49 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Especially think about government resources. I could go into that all day, but I'm not going to keep doing that.

00:16:55 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

But yeah, and then you think about learning about black history, and yes, it has been available. There's not much of A firewall as it was when I was younger. But now those firewalls are being placed back up, put back up.

00:17:14 Dr. Kaniqua Robinson

Now what? What do you do? You you're going to have to rely on these books, right? You want to go back to the books. It's a cycle.

Maclaren- If you would wouldn't mind just starting out saying just your name and then a brief background

Baba- My name is Baba and I'm half Chinese and half Japanese, but more specifically half Taiwanese and half Japanese, and um I grew up both in Japan and Taiwan, so half of my elementary middle school, high school, half and half in Taiwan and Japan. And my background, my undergraduate is in English literature, but um I have a master's degree in hotel management, uh travel industry, management, and both of them focus on information system. Then I I' led left my job and then I'm back to school. I got my master's and also PhD in philosophy. 

Maclaren- Wonder. Thank you, and then what was your first interaction with the Internet when and how sort of, did you first start interacting with it, like personal devices, uh public devices and like you know the date? 

Baba- first the reason why no specific date is 1995, August is because one of the first things that we had to do as a part of my uh kilogram is to um understand how uh computer works, how work and software wise. And at that time, the Internet was still very new, then we have to learn to have a basic understanding of how those pages are made. So we had to do some exercise to write HDMLs to uh to upload them that we can have our friends in a class to access that Google website to see how it is going. So my first entire action was actually through school. Before that, I never really used the internet, but school introduced that to me.

Maclaren-And then when you're using a school, we're using it for your personal, like reasons at all, or was it sort of just in that school setting? 

Baba-It was the moment we were introduced we were in my case I was forced to use it because we have to they believe that it was vital for all of us to understand this as quickly as possible, but immediately, many of us were like me, we never really went on to so called the web web web web before. At that time, you had to use a phone connection, it was very slow. I think 14 4286 very, very slow. And then so many of us, we just didn't have that at home. They immediately now we have school, which is connected, we have a lot of phone lines there. Then we immediately realized that as advantage on many of us start to serve the basic a different way of surfing at that time, but we start to try to look at different information, things that we wanted to learn and also one of the things that we have to learn is about using manipulate photos at that time, so be so we can use those photo on their web website, because some of our us may be going to marketing advertising, so so forth. So BB because of that, they immediately, yes, it was schoolwork but immediately was so useful person use immediately. Yeah. 

Mac-And then did you feel that it was accessible? I know you thought you were saying it was sort of in that wind setting of school, but then outside of that, did you feel that it was accessible to you? Baba- because the connection today is on the web 24-7. For that time, you cannot be connected all the time. So it's always temporary. So you have to connect and disconnect. So literally you have to go online and offline. Sometimes if you just have one phone phone jack, then you have to free it up so that you can actually use the phone. So at home, it was very difficult and also it was very, very slow. But at school, on the other hand, they have so many dedicated phone lines, so we can use it pretty much all the time. and also it was a little bit expensive to do it at home. So, most of us at that time, we just spent really, we just stayed at the university, which is some of us. It was so fascinating, we were really enthralled. We were just merging ourselves into it. And also professor weaning us, this is something that we need to have to be good at this as quickly as possible to be ahead of the other people. So with our, we can use it for personal entertainment and it's good for our future jobs, so we just do it all the time. 24 seven. That's sort of funny, with the AI, where it's like, you're I feel like we're now in that position where like, you need to learn this and utilize as best as you can to then move forward. So that's very interesting how almost insane, but at that time we already had something like an AI system, so we have something later on, it was called an expert system. So, as people who've been working already, we have a lot of known houses. So we actually come together to create a system with all our known houses cleanly organized. So anybody in different parts of the corporation can access it so that if you can ask a question, you will tell you how to do it in this circumstances, how to problem solve. So that was a early early AI, but that time already people are saying they can see what will happen if in, say, ten years, 20 years, what sort of thing will leave on that? 

Maclaren-So in that sense, very similar to this, for sure. and then did you feel any social pressures associated with it? Um, like getting access to it outside of your school or sort of sustaining a connection with the Internet, like, I know that you said that it was sort of required for school aspect and future jobs and employment, but was there this social pressure to be going on at this time? 

Baba-Um, have you seen the documentary by death uh called Social dilemma?

Maclaren-I've heard of it, but I have not watched it yet. 

Baba-We were basically at the time when those things uh, this is called um it's about attention, it is about, um basically trading those attention. This goes uh surveillance capitalism was very, very new. The name was different at that time, but um to give it to bring it down a little bit to the ground, uh around the same time, the first MMORPG, so massively multiplayer online uh roleplay games starting to come out. So some of the major names would be something called Oima online. So that kind of game, uh allowed hundreds and thousands and of thousand people to play at the same time. I'm sorry, 10,000 is wrong. It actually did not have that capacity. but you can imagine hundreds of hundred people. or across the world. So what we quickly found out is we can use that platform game platform, then me, for me and everybody else all around the world by friends who scatter around the world, we can gather in some pub inside the game, in there, we can talk to each other. and this is almost like what happened is, this is like a precursor and also something, almost like a spark to initiate messengers. because now we can be in the same room, all of us talking to each other real time. then we spend we realize we found ourselves spending a tremendous amount of time, even at work. That game would be connected 24 seven, where we can have immediate conversation with each other with zero delay, no phone, no fax at that time, there was something called fax. We still have phones, but that was way faster. We immediately realized this is very, very useful for us to talk to calling in different foods, different floors, different countries, immediately. then simultaneously at that time, there were services, um one of the called ICQ in 1996 or so, um basically wore something like um today's um what's up, uh something like signal, something like um um you know, um uh, you know, the Facebook message or something like that.izer prototype. I had a very special feature is that instead of sending messages, you can have real time chat, so you can see each other typing. and then uh lots and lots of people at that time. So in addition to the game, the game world gave us a taste of it, then later on the service of ICQ for us to communicate with each other 24/7 in real time. So we start sending messages so you can see real time. But the pressure of your friends and your coworkers to be there 24 seven was shouldmend. It was prior before the time we were thinking about etiquette. period of time thinking about privacy or don't send uh, like a business email on the weekend. No, we are already beyond email. We were talking to each other, it didn't matter. Christmas day, um New Year's Day, 24 seven. So we were there watching this constantly because we didn't want to miss any news, any information and the privacy was not that good. So we pretty much know everybody's, um what's where we're doing. and like gain off was difficult. So I remember myself to be there most of the time as almost everywhere I know. But of course we were a little bit different from what the public thought, when the public started to do this and um we could almost see what was going to happen to everybody. There would be like us. Right, right. They'll be spending all the time. and those people will game, they'll be like its name. Pigeons. So it's gambling. You cannot stop. 

Maclaren-It was sort of like an infatuation with it. 

Baba-Incredible. It gives us reward, it gives us a rush, it is incredible. 

Malarenc-Wow, so interesting. 

Baba-It would be heartful if someone came up and said that they don't know what's going on. We somehow feel this person is morally questionable, because this person was not a part of the group. It used to be just three people, four people, we were talking about really scores upon scores of people over them at the same time. But that was a new experience. And also lots of um but it's not just work, not just of or personal, but a lot of the things were quite loo on the Internet at that times, so if there's some sort of new program, some sort of a new way of getting different kind of files available, those were share in those, readily than people were just getting each other information way faster than any magazine you can imagine. So so for for me, I want to be there all the time to make sure that uh when I was at school, I wanted to know that people not only my school, but what people from other school are thinking and also what people in the industry, in corporation are thinking, uh that's a lot of information. 

Maclaren-Yes, for sure. for sure. And then the final question is, how do you think that the Internet has evolved today? Are you sort of seeing these similar patterns or do you today?

Baba-It is just my opinion. Today, a lot of think that we experience at that time something good, something bad. It really inspire people to use it as a kind of cognitive warfare and tactics to get uh to benefit to to benefit them in some ways. So some of thing we feel that is the most um most effective in getting people to be engaged, they were used to almost like as a weapon to to weaken your cognitive defense so that we can grasp you so you can you can we can make you be a part of whatever things that you are doing for our benefits. So in that sense it it has to become very a potentially, very dangerous because a lot of people with different kind of know how have a capacity to control uh how people feel, how people can react, um how people in fact, those the way that they feel and think about things will affect their behaviors. So now we have to figure out way in which this kind of cognitive um tactics can influence your real role behavior. So this could be very dangerous. at the same time, uh, because it was so new, so the regulations and all things on SNS and also things, I think was a bit too late, it was not it was we still talking about this, just like the last week, there was a whistleblower on Facebook talking about um sharing information with the Chinese government, et cetera. So we're still not really good at how we don't know how to wield this properly, but I can but how can say for certain, there's a lot of things that are in place now here that will that's a very good, a lot of horrible things will happening at that time. Many of those horrible things is no longer available on the it cannot easily be accessible. And there are people who try to moderate this and there are ways to protect your privacy. Remember at that time, for example, Facebook came out for us, we' the first people at that time was not public.s it's memories I think4. So he was still a university, just the Internet, just a university. In those things, there is nothing for privacy. Today, uh, we'll try our very best to hide them so that you it would be very complicated for you to do your private seat setting properly. and there are people who actually spend a really long time trying to prevent you from doing that, but it has to be something that's being available, especially in EU. And not so much in the United States is very, very loose, in comparison. In East Asia, there are a lot of regulations. But those still, if you know how to do this, you can watch a video about how to set your privacy correctly, you can go and do it. Back then, there are none. That's a big, bigress... So, if you have a digital signature at that time, it's appallingly bad. to what them out, it's extraordinarily difficult.. So to today at least, you can protect it, you have the choice, at least. If you are lucky, it depends on which state you are in, or if your ability to do something about this. But most of us, um don't. At that time, even this didn't exist. Yes, yeah. It was just open. I hope we can find each other. Right? where they live. And I can just ask AI. No, no, itelbreaking. Yeah, yeah. So hopefully AI will have a regulation, more proactive one in comparison, uh what will learn from mistakes, from um Internet and later on SNS. Hopefully we'll learn from this, that lots of great things will happen. Also, lots of really horrible things that I'm not sure about I share. But uh I think AI I think it could be done better., for sure. Very scary. Yeah, but it was fun. There was no no restriction, very free. 

Olivia:  Okay, I think it's recording now. There we go. So I'm just gonna ask a few questions about your experiences with the advent of the internet. 

Carole: 

ancient history. It feels like it sometimes. Yeah. 

Olivia: Okay. Uh, what was your first interaction with the internet? And like when, how, and kind of just walk me through that.

Carole: I kind of dusted off some cobwebs and tried to think back to when I first interacted both personally and professionally. And I think it was in, I hope you're not looking for an exact date. It was the early nineties. Um, the. Association I worked for, uh, had computers. Um, the first association, they had a, I don't know if you're familiar with a Wang system, which was more set up for, um, uh, word processing. When I went to the next association, they interacted more. Um, and, and we did. More online. Um, we also had to fight over computers and access. It was a, a very curious interaction. Like I had to go in at five o'clock in the morning in order to have, yeah, in order to have access and this was a big association. Have access to a computer. I can type like the wind. So I would get all my stuff done and then my. Associates would come in later and would do one of these to find their, their stuff out. But that was so early nineties, was that, and then I kind of looked along and dial up, didn't come in until, um, like early two thousands. So we did AOL was our life was everybody's life back in the day. Um. 1993, I did a little research on this. 93 AOL started mailing trial CDs and setting up email addresses. 1995, there were 1 million members in AOL nine six, there were 5,000,099. There were 18 million members in AOL. I ran my business off AOL for the first several years, and then when broadband came on. We went more professional, you know, and you got a, a service provider that allowed you to have something that wasn't aol.com at the end of it. So anyway, that was it. And personally and professionally probably was my introduction to internet at the same time. It was God bless pretty much all a OL. Yeah. 

Olivia: And I guess personally and professionally, did you feel like. Both, or maybe one more or the other was accessible for you and other people?

Carole: Oh, personally, it was always accessible and it was exciting. It was just like the movie, you've got mail, you know, you'd go in, you'd do the dial up thing, you'd go through the whole thing, and then the little you know, thing would pop up in the mailbox and you were like, woo hoo. I've got mail. And it was pretty exciting. Yeah, we just showed that in class. Yeah, it was, it was exactly like that. Um, and, and people communicated for hours. That was the beginning of screen time. You know, we sat in front of our computers all the time, interacting with people, but, but it wasn't instantaneous like it was today. You know, today I can send you a text. You and I are going back and forth. Then it was, you'd send it and you'd hope that maybe later that evening or maybe tomorrow, or you never knew when somebody was gonna get it because they had to be literally sitting in front of their computer. 'cause we didn't have these back then. Mm-hmm. Um, and it was a, my Blackberry, do you know what a Blackberry is? 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Carole:Um, my Blackberry did not have. All the functions that, um, an iPhone does and, uh, you know, but it's interesting how I look back and see how technology has increased and has just made all of us way more accessible as a result. 

Olivia: And when you first had access to email and I guess the like software in work places, did you feel any social pressures associated with that, or was it just like, kind of free?

Carole: I. I don't, I don't think I understand what kind of social pressures?

Olivia: like, were there any expectations? 'cause like, I guess in today's world, like if you get a text, like people are expecting that you have your phone with you all the time and you should be replying, or you should be doing certain things with your access, like. Texting people back or sending emails within a certain time or things like that. 

Carole:I have two friends who in the last 24 hours have texted me freaking out because I'm not responding instantaneously. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna get back to you when I'm gonna get back to you. Okay. But, but for work situations, um. I had a client in California who would work until the wee hours of the morning. Well, one o'clock in the morning is, uh, California time is 4:00 AM East Coast time. Every time he would send me a text or an email, I would respond instantaneously, and it freaked him out because he. Why is this woman up at four o'clock in the morning responding to my emails? It just, it depends on the kind of person you are. There were, you know, for, for me personally, there was no work-life balance. It was work and you did what you have to do, and the expectations depended on the client. Um, whether or not they expected you to get back immediately or not. 

Olivia: Okay. And with all that, how would you say that it's evolved into like social norms for today?

Carole: Um, for me personally, I have less, uh, pressure on myself to respond immediately because my life is more my life now than it was. 10, 15 years ago when I was working all the time. Um, but it's, I love it because it's convenient. It allows me to. I keep up with family, friends, and they can respond when they wanna respond and we text, we use that messenger service, we email, we, you know, I, there are a whole bunch of other things. Every time I turn around there's some new service. It's somebody's offering that I now have to learn. But, um, I'm, I'm grateful for it. It's, it's, I wish I'd had it when I was in college. Yeah. I'm glad to have, it's. I just, I couldn't imagine. Um. 

Olivia: And then from a personal perspective, or I mean, I guess a work perspective as well, what were your primary uses like day to day, like when you first had access, like what would you open your computer and do?

Carole: Well, um, first thing that I'd do, open email and answer email and try and clear out my inbox as quickly as possible. Um, I learned though over time to. Prioritize. And the word delete was my favorite thing and I would just clean them out quickly. Um, but I used, uh, I started developing a database when I started my company and that was my life. Um, and because I had, I had, do you know what a fax machine is? 

Olivia: Yeah.

Carole: Okay. Don't wanna assume anything. Um. We used to communicate via fax, mostly because people didn't have email. Well, and then we did broadcast fax. So at the start I would literally dial up the fax number and send the page through every single one. Do you know how long it took to send a thousand faxes? 

Olivia: I can't imagine.

Carole: A long time. And then the internet made it. You hit a bunch of buttons and off it went, and you know, the cloud took care of everything. It was the same way with email at the start. You sent one at a time. After a while there was a service, you send it off to the service and the cloud would send it all out to your whole database if you wanted, and you could tweak things. And it made work way more efficient, um, much easier. And you could have, you could even pass it off to somebody else to do so it just, it made my time more of my own. It made me way more efficient, allowed me to do more. 

Olivia: Okay. I think that's all the questions that I have. Is there anything else you might wanna add? I think that you covered a lot.

Carole: Um, you know, I just, I was looking back through the whole history of it all and it, it was a great reminder of. All the services that's provided, the growth of communications business and social interactions and info access. And can you imagine not having Zoom during covid? No. I mean, if you hadn't had that opportunity, you guys would've been screwed with school businesses would've shut down all over the world. Um. I, I mean, we, we've been very fortunate, but I hope we're always mindful and careful of how we progress and develop things. I look forward to cool things you guys are gonna develop over the next few years.

Olivia: I know. I'm like, I'm a little nervous, especially with all the AI stuff. 

Carole: Oh my gosh. Like, that's a whole other, that's not even like internet, but that's a whole other, like, I'm scared, but I, it's also fun. But like I. Can they all really do that? Like do you know how to use it yet?

Olivia: I think so. I mean, yeah, actually my friends, especially who go to like bigger schools, like they all like compare notes on like how to use AI to uh, like refine your paper but not sound too ai like, and then you go through and like make it yourself so you don't get caught cheating. And so like right, they like, tell me how to like use it for that stuff. And I'm like, it's, it's overwhelming, but I like feel like if I'm not. Picking up on how to learn that, then I'm gonna be behind. 

Carole: Oh, gosh. Yeah, absolutely. I, I notice now people who are posting job openings, you have to be, it doesn't matter what industry you're going into, you gotta know this stuff. You gotta know how to use a computer, how to use all these different programs, all this different software. Um, how to take notes efficiently. I just picked up another app the other day. Just to take notes off of. Mm-hmm. And I thought, wow, that's kind of cool to, you know, be able to do it, but I can't wait for Peyton to come home and teach me how to use all this other stuff.

Olivia: Oh, she knows more than me. Like I, I think I know more about like how to use it for like, fun, stupid, weird stuff. But like, I'm a communications major, so like all this like media stuff, like this is like my life, my career. Like if I don't have it down like everybody else probably does. 

Carole: What do you wanna do next? What do you wanna do for your career this summer? 

Olivia: I'm working, um, with a company, it's two Furman alums. They, my title is Amazon Marketing intern, but I don't like, I don't work for like Amazon, the company, but I work for people who list their products on Amazon. So just like comparing like. It like, I think one of their clients is like a dog toy company or dog food. So like looking at other dog toys and like seeing the Amazon reviews and like how can we market ourselves to be better than the competitors and stuff like that. Sure. That's interesting. And where are you gonna be doing that? It's remote, but I'll be in Greenville. Oh wow. Okay. Yeah. Great. So I'm excited to like touched on that, but I don't know if that's like the only thing I would wanna do. Yeah. With my, 

Carole: do you have a, I wanna dip into things and do you have a 10 year dream, something you wanna see yourself doing? And I mean, obviously that can change. 

Olivia: Yeah, I would say, hmm. Probably just like, I feel like there's a lot of marketing PR jobs where you like dip your toes in with a bunch of different things. Like today I'm working with a client on something, just one-on-one and tomorrow I'm working a conference and I'm traveling this weekend for this conference to learn more about this company. Like I would wanna do something like that where I'm just like doing a bunch of stuff. Gotcha, gotcha. I don't know what the title of that job is, but. Whatever that is. 

Carole: My guess is there are a multitude of different types. Something in marketing Yeah. Is probably what it'll be. Well, that's fantastic. Good for you. Good for you. Yeah. Well give a shout if there's anything else you need at all. Okay. And have you, by the way, have you ever done dial up? 

Olivia: No

Carole: It's um. Painfully slow. I mean, you guys have never had to wait. Yeah, a second. I have friends that freak out, like if the internet is not immediately accessible and it's not 5G minimum, they freaking out. You know, they can't function. I think that's all of our generation. Yeah. Yeah. And uh, it teaches you patience, but um, at the same time, I'd much rather have the instantaneous. Yeah. So, well, good luck with your paper and your project and everything else, and give a shout if you need anything else. 

Olivia: Thank you!