My computer in my dorm is my base. Whenever I'm in my room without having decided exactly what to do next, I get in my computer and see what's up -- email, AIM, Facebook, reddit.com, my Google RSS feed aggregator, and my bittorrent downloads. Even though I'm on the computer more than average, I know most of the people I know have this "base" relationship with their computers.
What I'm wondering is, did people had an analogous base state in their homes before computers became ubiquitous? I guess in the last century it was in front of the TV. Before that, in front of the radio? In the easy chair with a newspaper? At the desk with a pen and paper?
I guess without an incredibly entertaining way to idle, people kind of had to move from one task to another. The "base" thing may be an unprecedented transformation of the American lifestyle.
1 comment:
yaa, that's interesting. just what DID we all do before reddit and slashdot came along. makes you wonder where all that time went. I think the definition of base is something that can be done mindlessly, giving some moderate form of entertainment to entice you to stay for some more. Having grew up without much tv access, I think I spent most of my time browsing crichton and grishham novels all the while hacking it up on vb xD
Check out popurls.com by the way, a most excellent way to waste some more time. It's a aggregator for an aggregator! I forever regret discovering it and setting it as my homepage :P
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