Humanity Didn’t Migrate to Mars, We Moved to the Internet
On coming of age in the transition from analog to digital
We wanted to be anywhere but earth. Mars, the moon, one of the moons of Mars. Somewhere different. Somewhere we hadn’t messed up yet. We wanted to start over with uncharted territory. We would manage the resources effectively, we promised. If we just had a new place, a fresh start, a home of our very own unsullied by past generations, we would make it a utopia of sorts.
I grew up with one foot in the analog age, the other in digital. I played outside and I played computer games. I talked to my friends in person and messaged them on chat sites. I used text speak like “LOL” and “l8ter” online only; it would sound out of place IRL.
I waited for pictures to finish printing at drugstores, enjoyed DVD slideshows of photographs, and stored digital snapshots on laptops. I wrote my papers by hand in elementary school, then typed them in middle school and high school. The internet was not the “real world” back then. It was an advancement; a tool to improve our lives in moderation.
Now, the digital sphere feels like its very own realm to which we devote ever increasing amounts of time. At this rate, a day will come when the internet will not be our escape from this world, but a new world…
