I am an inveterate internet user, at least insofar as I feel the need constantly to check what I realise is a small range of websites to which I am used. Checking for emails, especially now I am equipped to do so on the hoof thanks to a very nice gadget which recently entered my life (yeah, flat, black, glossy and oblong) has become almost a tic. And yet, on my return to normal life after the summer break, I realise I am slow to return to an “active” internet life, with all its tweets, Facebook updates, blog posts, et al. I am wondering why that is. Too much like hard work?

Sometimes you have to look at the world as it is

This is probably exactly the wrong place, indeed a self-contradictory place, to hint at heretically relativising thoughts, but being away far from Brussels for a few weeks has made me reflect on digital divides of various sorts.

There is the usual one of course, between people with access to the internet and those without, but it is probably fair to say that, at least in the developed world, no-one need be cut off from the internet, any more than anyone need be cut off from TV or a telephone. No, the important digital divides now lie between the different ways in which people experience the internet. That’s why I mention my own difficult “reintegration” after the break – it made me think about what kind of internet user I am and how that is quite different from other people, including many I work with.

Disclosure: I am white, male, British, university-educated, mid-forties.  So now you know. I am not “generation Y“, I don’t think I ever used a computer at school, and at university I wrote all my essays longhand.  However, when I watch the television (which is not that often, but apparently more often than Generation Y’ers) I notice from the current crop of ”nostalgia” programming (70s and 80s) that my generation is in charge of the (mainstream) media. I further note that Obama is not that much older than me. So perhaps my generation is in charge of the world too. Closer to home, I work daily with computers and the internet, I like gadgets. So how do I use the internet?

The important digital divides now lie between the different ways in which people experience the internet

Email is integral to everyday life also outside work, but most non-professional messages are dross (i.e. advertising). Just a small minority actually get any attention, but these are mostly unimportant and/or unofficial.  I still want my electricity bill in the post. On paper.

I check news sites, often provoked to do so by the two or three automatic newsletters I have signed up for. But, if I’m honest, it’s always the same two or three sites and I still want the “proper” news regularly (meaning the BBC, TV or radio). I still subscribe to paper magazines – which I actually read, but almost never buy newspapers.

The only news where the web really dominates for me is tech news.  That seems appropriate.

I buy things online – books, music, travel tickets, car hire – but only from big, well-known companies. I research offline purchases too, but most real things I want to touch before I buy.  I can’t bring myself to feel comfortable about eBay.

And of course, I find things out from the internet: weather, location, addresses and phone numbers, missing facts, quotes, dates… “Look it up” is something which now basically means “google it”.

So far, so Web 1.0… So what about the much-vaunted social media, Web 2.0 and all that? I share photos and the odd video online, but for me this is an operation, not a spontaneous  everyday mobile experience (like in the adverts). Yes, Facebook and Twitter are on my every day must-check list, but I realise that I am largely a spectator. I want my “friends” to be people I know, and at least feel friendly towards. I like to see what they are up too and, because I know them, don’t see this as voyeurism. I love checking out the cool online videos and websites (here’s one from this week) people link to – this is the greatest use of social networks for me.  Increasingly, though, I realise that 95% of the tweets I follow are just boring (I could cut down to following about five people with few regrets, those who (as we used to say back home) “only say something if they’ve got something to say”). So I consume social media, but it occurs to me more and more that I struggle for inspiration as to what to post myself.  This just doesn’t seem to be an issue for many others, but for me it just doesn’t come naturally to tell people about the trivia of my life, and I so want my updates and tweets to be interesting and pertinent that I self-censor almost anything I might put for fear of wasting people’s time.  That leaves “professional” updates and tweets, but even there I feel the need to moderate the volume for fear of inundating friends and/or spoiling the personal nature of Facebook (no such qualms with Twitter).

So, you might say, if I’m so reticent about talking about myself online, why am I telling you all of this?

Because I need an example.  I do not claim to represent my generation, but I also suspect that I am not untypical: a web-consumer, but not usually a huge web-explorer; a frequent user, but cautious about getting stung; attracted by social media, but not instinctive or natural about opening up my life to all online. The internet is an extra dimension, but not a natural habitat. I am not clueless, but I am not as clued up as many who surround me (thank goodness). I am a digital immigrant (like Svetla’s mother-in-law).

The pressure is always to be cutting edge, to be doing the latest thing, surfing the latest trend.  We need to do that, but we cannot do ONLY that.

None of this is how it’s supposed to be.  Breathless opinionistas and bloggers imply that all web users are spontaneous and opinionated online, smart, faddy, creative, uninhibited, keen to interact, desperate to be heard. They are supposed to be citizens of the world, talking to the world and listening to the world. They flock to the latest hit online video or cool website, aggregate content with their RSS browsers, and share their every move with their friends (whom in their case they probably do not actually know) in real time, tweeting on their mobile phones.

Of course, many, many people are doing exactly that, and more.

But many more aren’t.  The internet is like society in general, made up of people with very different online lifestyles.  People have their groups and their habitual haunts, their comfort zones and their downtime, their professional worlds and their private lives. Some people are young, energetic, adventurous, maybe also gullible, impulsive and fickle, others are more staid, constant, cautious, but perhaps also more stable and committed.

Where am I going with all this?  I suppose it’s no more than a question of trying to stand back for a moment, relativising and remembering that even online the European Parliament has to talk to everyone.  Catering to one world (good thing), must not exclude catering to others (also good thing). The pressure is always to be cutting edge, to be doing the latest thing, surfing the latest trend.  We need to do that, but we cannot do only that.  If our notion of digital democracy is to focus ALL our efforts on Facebook and Twitter (or whatever’s next), we win plaudits from the in-crowd online, but we arguably open up a digital divide of our own, cutting off an otherwise completely sentient crowd of people (I know many of them) who may have heard of Facebook and Twitter, but still think it’s a bit of a waste of time. They exist, yes, they use the internet, and they vote…

This is a huge simplification of course. As we found during the election campaign, different online and traditional media are not sealed off from each other, but feed off each other constantly. Nevertheless, we should not forget that in the great big world of the internet, people still organise themselves into their own little worlds. One of our jobs is not to limit ourselves to yet another little world of our own.

Do I overstate my case?