transience and media consumption.

I've recently gone through a birthday, a move, and my last undergraduate exams, so things have been a little scattered in the broken gent world, of late. What I'm finding interesting is the change in my habits that has come with less ease, and less personalisation, in my media consumption.

Put simply, when I lived in a tiny room, in a house filled with university students, I was online constantly, never behind on my RSS items, speedy with response to emails, and generally as active as is reasonably in online life. This is apparently something that those who know me had grown accustomed to, as I'm not unfamiliar with being mocked for always being online, and to responding to links and forwards with 'saw that last week'. I'm an information junkie, and the way I use my time is inarguably a response to that.

Moving, and having wrecked the wireless card of my semi-functional PC, means that I've become a tech nomad, using my parents machines, only being online when sitting at a desk, and reducing myself to binges on information when I can find the time. It baffles me that I've gone from waiting for RSS items to appear and devouring them, to having hundreds piled up by the time I get to them. This wouldn't be shocking if I was busy, but at the moment I'm doing a credible sloth imitation before I redecorate my space, and begin the job hunt.

What is shocking is that the internet is no less accessible, but the loss of MY machine, MY bookmarks and presets, and MY hard drive has completely changed the way I read, watch, and listen. I suppose this would only come as a surprise to someone like me, who has only been deeply addicted to this lifestyle for the last 4 years, coinciding with my ownership of the same computer. The current situation is a nice window for me into the inadequacy of publicly available terminals for a computer literate society.

This situation, I think, is why there are so many people convinced that one laptop per child is going to be a driving force in the future of Africa. However, there is something interesting that I've noticed. I'm still keeping up with the online section of my life, but at the same time, I'm getting more done (not in terms of blogging or writing, but in terms of physical tasks) as man-without-pc, than I would as man-with-pc.

This was more rambling than intended, my apologies. It's also got me thinking, as someone who has always been desktop bound, how a laptop would change my consumption patterns even more.

[Expect a post about mobile internet access, cell phones, etc, and media consumption shortly.]

[EDIT: Upon reflection, some of the content of the above post could make it seem like I'm against the OLPC (one laptop per child) concept. While I like the idea, part of me wonders whether this is directly beneficial, or whether it is a case of trying to skip ahead in international development and give another society the tools / toys that are arguably essential in ours. Basically, I wonder whether making laptops and ad-hoc networking available to the children of the developing world makes sense at all when in so many cases drinking water and food are in short supply.

It's like giving a drowning man a car. It's nice, but it really isn't going to fix the immediate problem, regardless of how useful it will be if he can get to land.]