Living with Computer
After too long on the Net, even a phone call can be a shock. My boyfriend's Liverpudlian accent suddenly becomes hard to understand after the clarity of his words on screen; a secretary's tone seems more rejecting than I'd imagined it would be. Time itself becomes fluid - hours become minutes, and alternately seconds stretch into days. Weekends, once a highlight of my week, are now just two ordinary days.
For the last three years, since I stopped working as a producer for Charlie Rose, I have done much of my work as a tele-commuter (远程交谈者). I submit articles and edit them via E-mail and communicate with colleagues on Internet marling lists, My boyfriend lives in England, so much of our relationship is computer-mediated.
If I desired, I could stay inside for weeks without wanting anything. I can order food, and manage my money, love and work. In fact, at times I have spent as long as three weeks alone at home, going out only to get mail and buy newspapers and groceries. I watched most of the blizzard (暴风雪) of 96 on IV.
But after a while, life itself begins to feel unreal. I start to feel as though I've merged with my machines, taking data in, spitting them back out, just another node (节点) on the Net. Others on line report the same symptoms. We start to strongly dislike the outside forms of socializing. It's like attending an A. A. meeting in a bar with everyone holding a half-sipped drink. We have become the Net opponents' worst nightmare.
What first seemed like a luxury, crawling from bed to computer, not worrying about hair, and clothes and face, has become an avoidance, a lack of discipline. And once you start replacing real human contact with cyber-interaction (网上交流), coming back out of the cave can be quite difficult.
At times, I turn on the television and just leave it to chatter in the background, something that I'd never done previously. The voices of the programs soothe (安慰) me, but then I'm jarred (使感不快) by the commercials. I find myself ed in by soap operas, or compulsively (强制性地) needing to keep up with the latest' news and the weather. 'Dateline,' 'Frontline,' 'Nightline,' CNN, every possible angle of every story over and over and over, even when they are of no possible use to me. Work moves from foreground to background.
Compared with the clear words of her boyfriend on screen, his accent is

A.obscure.