Narratives

Elizabeth wakes up on an ordinary Winter morning in 2007. Before she even thinks of breakfast or a shower, she punches the âonâ button of her Apple laptop as she wipes the sleep out of her eyes. It boots, hitting the wireless network that invisibly blankets her house. A moment later, sheâs automatically logged on to four separate instant messaging networks at once.

As soon as the icons in Yahoo! Instant Messenger light up, a small blue square on the laptop starts to flash. A pop-up box with âyo yo yoâ appears on the screen. Her friend Trevor is awake, too, somewhat to her surprise. He was up late at a rave the night before â Elizabeth saw heâd posted on his LiveJournal blog that he was going out.

âHey Trev,â she types back with one hand, while she reaches for her iPod with the other, âparty OK?â Trevor, from some point unknown, sends back a flurry of half-sentences â it was more than OK, apparently â as Elizabeth connects her iPod to the laptop. She punches a few more buttons, convincing iTunes to download a few new songs and a podcast she likes onto the iPod for the walk to school. She opens her e-mail client as the IM window keeps flashing, Trevor punching the âenterâ key with each new detail. âTMI!â Elizabeth yells back at him through YIM. Heâs given her more info than she really wanted to know about the party.

Ignoring Trevâs persistent messaging â the âTMIâ did not sink in, apparently â Elizabeth opens her e-mail client, watching as a few dozen messages, sent her way during the wee hours, float onto her screen. After a quick graze over the message titles and news headlines that arrive in the inbox, much of it looking an awful lot like spam, she decides e-mail can wait til after breakfast. May as well login to Second Life, too, while Iâm at it, she thinks, bringing to life her cute avatar, which makes her smile. Time for orange juice.