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I started using the Internet when I was 12 years old. I would go into chat rooms and flirt. It was the beginning of the Internet for young people.

When I was 8 or 9, I started using bulletin board systems, which was the precursor to the Internet, where you'd dial into... a shared system and shared computers. I've had an email address since the late '80s, when I was 8 or 9 years old, and then I got on the Internet in '93 when it was first starting out.

I've learned that social media and our private lives, you know, our private lives are not so private anymore, so it takes a little bit of getting used to.

I have two daughters, and they grew up and wanted to get into Instagram, and I didn't know anything about social media. I started it to learn about what they were starting to do and how they communicate with their friends. I opened an account. Very fast, in a few hours, I realized that I actually liked it.

I've never really been into social media - I don't have a Facebook; I don't do Twitter or Instagram or anything.

I started my blog in 2002. That was pre-MySpace, pre-Facebook. That was back before newspapers realized they were going out of business. That was back when no one gave any credence to Internet writers.

Despite my high profile on social media, I'm a private person.

I guess Twitter is the first thing that has been attractive to me as social media. I never felt the least draw to Facebook or MySpace. I've been involved anonymously in some tiny listservs, mainly in my ceaseless quest for random novelty, and sometimes while doing something that more closely resembles research.

I think everyone should have social media - all young people, at least.