Kevin Bewersdorf’s article titled, “Spirit Surfing” helped me better understand the world of net art. He broke down Internet users into two categories: the INFObrats and the INFOmonks. The INFObrats are probably the largest group especially here in the United States.
The INFObrats are a group of Internet users that surf with a purpose. Generally they will visit the same sites everyday with goals in mind for each. For example, going to gmail.com to check email, going to facebook.com to post pictures of last weekends escapade, or to amazon.com to buy textbooks for school, etc. These information brats use the web for practical and material purposes.
Another group is the INFOmonks. This minority tends to surf the web by exploration and not a specific goal in mind. Bewersdorf wrote that these spiritual monks “work towards the glorification of web and the spirit that constructs it.”
I would easily group myself as an INFObrat. It is hard for me to open an Internet browser and search and explore without first visiting my good friends: gmail, facebook, and CUlink. It’s has almost become apart of my hierarchy of needs. Above all I need food, part of the survival stage before I even think of opening my laptop. Next, I have to be comforted by my usual routine of websites that allow me to feel connected with the world, interestingly enough since I am actually no more informed after reading useless status updates. After I’ve completed this daily ritual, I sit at my computer for a second and try and remember why I needed to get on the Internet. Was it to look up a place to eat dinner? Was it to find a good time waster? (Which I’ve already wasted 5 to 10 minutes already.) Oh yes, I needed to complete my homework assignments, all of which are through the Internet.
This process is so frustrating to me and yet so addicting. I almost need to be at a computer all day if I ever want to reach an INFOmonk state. I could argue that as I search through websites for this class, History and Theory of Digital Art, that I simple explore and become one of Bewersforf’s INFOmonks, but I still have that initial goal to complete my blog assignment.
I would like to meet one of these INFOmonks because as of now I doubt there are any true people that can search to glorify the web and only the web. See, the Internet is so useful it would be a waste to not utilize it to its full ability; and that means being both INFObrat and INFOmonk.
I thoroughly enjoyed this article and was captivated by the author’s segregation of Internet as people know it and the Internet as has started to, and will become.
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