How we cite our quotes: Chapter, Paragraph
Quote #1
Our friend Kellan recently got AOL. She squeals every time someone sends her an instant message. She'll spend hours hunched over her keyboard typing out a conversation with someone who may not even go to Lake Forest High. (1.14)
And so the age of modern communication begins. Believe it or not, it wasn't as easy to have personal conversations with total strangers you've never seen before until the Internet was invented—and in 1996, Kellan finds it a major novelty that she can chat with a stranger while staring at a screen inside her bedroom. This was definitely a huge shift in the way that people interact with each other.
Quote #2
Josh shakes his head. "My parents don't want to get the Internet. They say it's a waste of time, and my mom thinks the chatrooms are full of perverts." (1.16)
Guess what? When the Internet came around, lots of parents were pretty skeptical about this new type of communication. The telephone was a huge deal back in the day, but this is communication to a whole new level—it can help someone hide who they are and pretend to be just about anybody.
Quote #3
"Why would anyone say this stuff about themselves on the Internet? It's crazy!"
"Exactly," I say. "I'm going to be mentally ill in fifteen years, and that's why my husband doesn't want to be around me." (5.30-31)
Josh and Emma's minds are blown by Emma's status updates about unemployment and therapy. These are both really personal issues, and in the 1990s, people generally handled them by discussing them with their nearest and dearest… which, since this required a phone call or face-to-face conversation, definitely didn't include four hundred other people.