Hello everyone!
My name is Mariusz (Mario) and my family is originally from Warsaw, Poland. I was born and raised there for ten years until my parents decided to move to the United States. We moved to the states when I was 10 years old, back in the year of 2003. Ever since I can remember I was very interested in computers, they drew my attention like nothing else. I loved to play with and on them, I was curious as to how they worked and what made them work. I enjoyed reading technology magazines and articles and learning about all of the new equipment and software that came out. Computers weren't the only thing that caught my attention, anything that had buttons and responded to user input had my hands all over it, I was pretty tech savvy and was interested in how everything worked. My dad was an electrician back in the day so I guess some of the interests must have been passed down through genes.
I remember my dad putting money aside and saving it for his fist computer because it was so expensive back in the late nineteen-nineties. I will never forget the day when he finally bought it and brought it home from the store. I was told to stay away from it when parents weren't home and to never touch it. I broke those rules fairly quickly. After watching my dad use it for the first couple of days or weeks I was truly amazed. After I learned how to operate the operating system, Windows 95, I asked my dad to open it and show me the insides. He did, and as soon as he popped the side off my face dropped. It was beautiful inside there. Later, he explained to me what each part was and what it did.
That computer lasted us for a very long time, even though we didn't use it at the end we kept it up until we decided to move. When we got it we were the first to have a computer on the block. I remember having family and friends come over and watch movies or play on it. That was all before internet too. Internet was very rare back then, not only was the technology not fully developed but it was very expensive. No one had it at home and only few companies had connections. Fast forward to 2001. My dad received a free dial-up connection from work so he decided to buy a modem so we could use it at home. To this day I remember the dialing tone that thing made each time you dialed the number to connect; good memories that I will never forget. Keep in mind that dial-up is only 56K so it was horrendously slow compared to today's broadband standards. Nonetheless, I was the cool kid and one of the first people who had this awesome thing called internet at home.
So you might be wondering how does all of this fit into this project and my story. Well as you can see the technology was very slow to mature and because of it's price it was slow to reach users in Poland. When we moved to the states it was like we moved to a whole different universe in my eyes. I remember seeing computers everywhere, at my parents work, doctor offices and in most homes. They weren't just computers, they had a decently fast network connection too. It was like I was a kid in the candy store surrounded by all of the technology.
As I was thinking about what I could do for this digital story about, I thought this was a great topic. I would reflect on my previous experiences, provide you with Poland's history and statistics and then compare them to the ones of America's. I will also talk about general ICT factors and barriers that stand behind this digital and literacy divides that I saw and experienced, as well as solutions to narrowing them.
I invite you to experience my digital story. Enjoy!
-Mario
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