Mark is a 50-year old white male, who lives with his male domestic partner in the row home they own in Center City Philadelphia. His neighborhood consists of townhouses and apartment buildings, about half of which are rental properties and half owner-occupied. Income levels range from upper to middle. The residents are mostly white, mostly young, professionals, with some older/retired persons and some students.

Mark has a master's degree in applied behavioral science and counseling psychology, with an additional year of schooling to be certified in psychiatric rehabilitation. He is the supervisor of an adult literacy program at a mental health center, where he has worked for the past 12 years. He describes his job as that of teacher, trainer, supervisor, and coach. Mark works about 38 hours each week at the center, and spends an additional 4 hours each week working at home. Because he shares his computer at work with a co-worker, Mark finds that has insufficient access time to do all the work he needs to do on the computer, so he works on his home computer. He resents his employer for "stealing" this personal time from him, and he blames the employer for not providing enough computer resources to allow him to do this extra work during the workday. Mark earns about $40 thousand per year, and his partner, who runs a small travel agency, earns about $25 thousand per year.

Free Time: In his free time Mark's favorite activity is reading, or, as he says, carrying on his "love affair with the printed word". Although his reading materials in bookcases covering every wall, every table, and much of the floor in the room where we sat reflect his wide interests, Mark told me he has a particularly strong interest in Jewish studies - theology and philosophy. He says "I probably would have become a rabbi if I'd come from a more traditional religious background." Mark's next favorite free time activity is listening to and performing music. He plays piano, sings and directs a choir at work, and he and his partner go to the orchestra and theater as often as their incomes will allow. Travel is another passion of both Mark and his partner, whose connections in the travel industry allow them to be able to afford frequent trips in the U.S. and abroad. Having had recent coronary trouble, Mark mentioned walking as his fourth favorite activity, and something he wants to do more in the near future as a health benefit.

Mark enjoys these activities which he sees as part of "the good life." He refers to the importance of his undergraduate liberal arts education, and says he is a proponent of the educational philosopher, Paolo Freire, commenting that:

"Development of and exposure to things like these gives you skills for living. They make my life meaningful, keep me challenged, and keep me interested in adult education."

Another of Mark's favorite free time activity is watching educationally oriented TV, such as Masterpiece Theater's current "Gormenghast" series, which he enjoys for its "magnificent visuals and philosophy." He also enjoys PBS specials, like the recent "Dance in America" series, which he thought was done in great depth, and which he used in his history classes to show examples of African influence in US culture. On commercial TV, Mark says two shows tie for the position of his favorite: "Touched by an Angel" and "Providence," both of which he likes for the way they present religion and "the angel issue", from a not-exclusively Christian perspective. He admires the way the characters on both programs "approach life's sturm und drang," and are shown doing things for their communities.

E-mail/Internet: Mark says that he has no family connections, but does have about 120 friends with whom he stays in contact at least once a year. He acknowledged that that number is large, and explained that, in addition to having many local friends, he has large groups of friends in the Pacific Northwest -- his home for 30 years -- and in England, where his partner attended school and lived for a number of years. He sends cards and letters by postal mail to all 120. In addition, he exchanges email messages with about 30 friends, sees about 40 socially, and sees about 5 or 6 at meetings or group gatherings, face to face, over the course of a year. He talks on the phone with about 15 friends, and with 5 or 6 of these he says has "heavy" telephone contact.

About 8 hours per week of Mark's time are spent on email, including about 45 minutes per day at work. Mark participates in a number of listserves (electronic mailing lists), two of which are purely work-related (on education/literacy topics), and at least four of which he considers personal (Jewish Theological Seminary Online, and three related to TV-education resources - PBS's education listserve, "Cable In The Classroom," and Ted Turner's "TNT OnLine"). Mark receives 10 email messages on an average day, mostly from the listserves. He says he usually receives only one personal one-to-one message per day, and sends two or three personal messages per day. He added that his female friends seem to use email more readily and more frequently than he or his male friends do.

Most of his non-listserve email correspondence is with colleagues at work. Mark describes incoming email from people at his job as "bureaucratic and nasty crap," to which he responds often, even though the original writer requested no response.

"I show them. I reply back to the whole list -- very polite, very unavoidable. With email you don't have to deal with someone in person, but you can still get action. E-mail is a way to create distance and bring closeness at the same time."

Mark believes that email has increased the quality of his contacts, especially at work, because:

"I've gotten better at using it. The printed word has a particular impact. I can have an influence in setting the agenda for discussion if I act proactively. It doesn't matter what they think of me, but I can get a response to an email message."

Mark says that his contacts have "definitely widened" since he began using email, and as more and more other people have started using email. The listserves in which he participates are particularly responsible for increasing the number of his contacts.

Mark does not use chat rooms because they are "too immediate" and intimidate him. "I like to have my spelling, punctuation and grammar right." However he thinks of the listserves as being like chat rooms, in that one can start by throwing out an idea, and then have an ongoing dialog about it with people on the list. These discussions can "generate a lot of sparks, which is good, especially when there are a lot of conflicts and challenges on an issue." Mark appreciates the presence of the moderator on the lists, to watch the tension and intercede as needed.

The first time he used the Internet in 1994, at the home of a friend, Mark found it "amazing." As soon as he was able to access it at work, he did. About the World Wide Web now, Mark says, "I love it. I can get lost in it."

Mark is a confident computer user, comfortable downloading a file from the Web and sending files from his computer to someone using another computer. He was not familiar with the term, "portal." Mark's friends and work contacts are resources he can consult if he needs assistance with software, in addition to using the print or online resources provided with the software itself or figuring out the solution himself.

Because he shares computer resources at work, his computer time there is limited, and he also has other concerns about privacy on the Internet at work.

"They monitor our usage at work. I work for a group whose models are fascistic. We'd lose access if we were seen to access inappropriate sites. The Web is too important to risk losing."

Because of his concerns, Mark has a strict policy for himself and his staff that everything for which the office computer is used must be office-related. Mark prefers to do much of his emailing and his Web surfing at home, even for projects related to his work.

Mark spends about 6 hours per week, on average, using the Web at home, and another 3 hours on the Web at work. This time varies, of course, "It depends on what I hear or see. I can spend much more at times." Most often, Mark visits sites he has bookmarked, but he often follows links from his original site, or links sent to him by someone.

"I love links! I get some of the best information from links. They help me to expand the information on a subject I'm already interested in, give me other views of the same topic or related ones. That's how I get lost in the Web, and lose track of time."

Mark makes use of search engines, and he uses a variety of them. He uses his ISP's default search engine, MSN "for fast searches, because they [MSN] come up automatically." In the past he mostly used Alta Vista, which he still goes to sometimes for "good, solid, academic searches." Mark's current favorite is Ask Jeeves.com:

"They think the way I do - the results I get are the results I was looking for. They give a lot of choices, too."

He occasionally uses Yahoo's search capability "because they give categories, which sometimes help me focus my searches."

When looking for information about a political candidate he might start by putting the candidate's name in the search engine, or he might put in the party's name or both party and candidate --depending on what kind of information he seeks. For example, "If I want commentary, criticism, I won't go to the party -- I'd want more objectivism."

The three main websites Mark uses are those for PBS, C-Span, and the Jewish Theological Seminary. The first two he uses as references for his classroom teaching, for curriculum and lesson planning on "literature, social and cultural studies, history, public affairs, current events - everything." The third site is used for Mark's personal torah study and other religious information.

When he most recently visited the Web, Mark began with a bit of curiosity about a web address, www.schwartz.co.uk, which he found on the label of a Schwartz brand spice he had used in a new recipe.

"I went there and explored for an hour and a half! I found recipes, information on the sources of the spices they sell, a history of spices in English culinary usage, a history of the Schwartz Spice Company. I really went wild."

Other ways Mark uses the Web include shopping, planning for travel (but not buying online because of his preference to use his partner's travel agency), and researching health or medical issues. Mark expects that in the near future he will begin to use the Web for home finances or banking and that he will meet someone online with whom he would later establish an off-line relationship.

Mark feels that using the Web has changed his life a great deal.

"How could it not, to have this world of information right at my fingertips? Without moving to New York, where else could I have such access to the world, the world of thought, philosophy, etc. I can take a class [online] at Jewish Theological Seminary, at Harvard School of Divinity, wherever I want to, or participate in discussions on all sorts of topics with people from all over the world. Without the Internet I'd still access this information, but I have much easier access to it now - faster, better and cheaper. It's incredible."

Mark commented that reading on the large 17-inch screen of his computer allows him to "deal with a computer longer than I can read a book. My love affair with print can continue on the Internet."

Expanding on the idea of access, and inspired to project beyond his own Internet usage:

"The world of the future is going to be about who has access to tools. My poor students, mentally handicapped and impoverished, I'm doing my best to provide access and interest to them."

He recalled the book, Ecotopia, about a fictitious "hippie socialist republic," in which there were learning centers on every block, and technology wasn't a negative thing.

"A lot can be done with imagination to take technology to more people - computer refurbishing programs, build-a-computer programs. There's so much potential. If we think out of the box, there's no limit to what we can do."

Nearly everything he finds on the Internet seems to be thrilling, from that experience with the spice company website to a successful search for a replacement carafe for his coffee machine. He finds much to "stretch" him. For example:

"A student asked me a question about Puritans and Roundheads - you know, the pilgrims and all that. I found this scholarly website, a multidimensional site, about the American Revolution. I went from a little question to near obsession in a short time that day."

Not all that he finds on the Web is positive, of course. Commenting on the upsetting content he found at a Nazi site, to which he had followed a link from the Simon Wiesenthal Center's site, Mark said,

"They're a threat to everybody. They're nasty and what they say is scary as hell. But if they are on the Web, so are the progressive sites, too. They don't go unchallenged or unexposed. They have the right to be there. I like the first amendment."

Mark has been embarrassed when he has come upon things he doesn't want, such as "girlie porn," but he blames his own carelessness. "You have to be conscientious; I clicked on something out of curiosity and should have known better."

Comparing his use of the Internet with that of others he knows who use it:

"Peoples' interests define their usage. I use it a lot, and it has enriched my life a lot. Some people [who use the Internet] become withdrawn, disconnected from life. I use it in the opposite way - to enhance my connections to life."

Mark makes use of search engines, and he uses a variety of them. He uses his ISP's default search engine, MSN "for fast searches, because they [MSN] come up automatically." In the past he mostly used Alta Vista, which he still goes to sometimes for "good, solid, academic searches." Mark's current favorite is Ask Jeeves.com:

"They think the way I do - the results I get are the results I was looking for. They give a lot of choices, too."

Interviewer: Carolyn Rahe