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Anorak News | Adult American prisoners who has never seen the Internet before describe it

Adult American prisoners who has never seen the Internet before describe it

by | 5th, September 2013

WHAT if you’re an adult American who has never seen the Internet before?

Justine Sharrock tells us that it is illegal in the United States for federal prisoners to go on the internet. So, longtime prisoners at San Quentin State Prison haven’t used the web. She asked some to describe the internet. One, Chrisfino Kenyatta Leal entered prison in 1994:

I envisioned the web to be like this infinite space filled with information about everything under the sun.

I was confused about how you got from one piece of info to the next and I was clueless in terms of the lingo used to describe it all…

The technical aspects of it make me go, Hmmmm? I realize everything is getting faster and moving toward mobile, so I often wonder about who’s doing all this stuff and where is it all taking place?

Tommy Winfrey entered prison in 1997

I’ve never seen the internet in person. I was locked up in 1997. CDs were a big deal. I knew the internet was called the information superhighway for a reason, but I had no idea how connected society really is through the internet.

I didn’t understand how big and new it is. It was a global name that has changed the world.

I could imagine the information that the internet provided when it came to research, and that is how it existed in my mind, just as a tool. If you had asked me what a URL was, I would have just looked at you.

I imagined an app was a button you pressed on your phone with no clear conceptualization of what it really did.

Prescient stuff…

 



Posted: 5th, September 2013 | In: Technology Comment | TrackBack | Permalink