I've all along been planning a Media/Communications installment to my informal survey of Kossack material circumstances. How do we send and receive information, and what concrete tools (phones, computers, TVs, print publications, writing paper, etc., etc.) do we possess to do it? But I became aware, when a friend came to visit over the holidays, just how atypical my own relationship to these tools may be. "I think you have the lowest media consumption of anyone I know," he said, or something to that effect. (The implication, I think, was: how can you live like this?)
Me? Me with my beloved laptop, surely my most prized possession? Well, it's true I don't have a TV. Or a cell phone. Or anything to play music on besides a crappy boom box. Nor do I, anymore, take a newspaper or any magazines. Uh, I have a lot of books... though not too many, as I've sold some and stopped buying them, preferring to use the library. My laptop is my sole computer. I don't have an iPod. Or a camera. Hmm. I have a telephone! It's cordless!
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