Testing, 1, 2, 3

I'm Chris or Christofer (to distinguish me from other Chrises in the class). I have my own WordPress blog on politics and culture which I call Tragic Farce. I've also tried Tumblr, but I'm much more comfortable with WordPress, which is somewhat more complex and, therefore, more precise and versatile, which suits my purposes.

I'm a nontraditional student in that I started college at Wesleyan University in Connecticut in 1977. College and I did not always agree. We had an on and off relationship through the 1980s. I left school (Wesleyan again) for the last time in 1989 when I was a course shy of my graduation requirements, which is one of the reasons why I'm here in this class (i.e., to complete my degree).

My experience has given me a perspective on the internet in relation to society that may be a little different from most students in the class, in that I saw it coming (vaguely) and watched it grow up from a weird fad used by gadget nerds and exploited by publicity firms to a necessity for almost everybody.

I don't know if anyone read the articles  about Facebook in yesterday's NY Times. I was struck most by the one by Evegeny Morozov, The Death of the Cyberflâneur, though the others are also interesting and apropos to this class. Morozov's point is that the nature of our relationship with the internet has changed from one  in which individuals approached a vast universe of endpoints, all equally open for exploration according to one's whim and will, to one in which your path has been precalculated for you based on your unconsciously stated preferences. Yes, it's easer to find exactly what you're looking for, but I agree with Morozov that we've lost something (like freedom of choice) for that efficiency.