Introduction

“I can’t leave the house yet, mom!” I screamed, “I am not done checking my email!”. I sat at ruler’s length from my monitor, listened to my mouse click and waited for my bitmapped images to load. My mother, annoyed, stood downstairs by the banister and waited for me to join her in grocery shopping. Frustrated with my dial-up connection speed, I prepared to shut down my computer. As I clicked the ‘X”’s on my program screens, a familiar notification beep sounded from my monitor speakers. I had received an ICQ message from Jimmy. “ Hey Ari, did you want to do something tonight?” it read. My mother screeched again and woke up my father. I knew I should get going. I closed the program, shut down my CPU and ignored the ICQ message. The entire day I was flooded with guilt for not replying to Jimmy’s message. “Is he mad?” I thought “Did he realise I was online? I could blame my ISP”. As soon as I arrived home from shopping I ran up the stairs to my room, turned on the computer, opened the ICQ message centre and sent Jimmy an instant message.

In understanding human-computer interaction, the fascination lies in the humans use the Internet, not as a tool but as a ‘way of life’. The net’s inhabitations are part of a culture of use. In the past, people responded to messages said in person, over the phone or in a letter. Today, text within an online chat, article or email pokes the psyche. In essence, emotions attached to text transferred mediums so Internet users consider online activity significant in everyday interaction. The assumptions made base on Marshall McLuhan’s premise, that technology revolutionized conduct and communication by extending real-life presence. As well, the intrigue of agency, control, self-representation, and fascination within cyberspace explain and substantiate addiction to this medium. Theorists, Sherry Turkle and Erving Goffman, have published extensive material on the social impact of interaction, self- representation and technology, attempting to understand the phenomena.