Microserfs Essay

Sarah Stockman
COMP 106
Professor Yerks
27 April 2009
The Changing Face of Communication in a Digital World: A Look at How Coupland’s Microserfs Is a Reflection of Life in a High Tech World
Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs is an intriguing look into the high-tech corporate culture of the mid-1990’s. The novel is written as a compilation of computer journal entries written by the main character Daniel, a self-described techie. We meet Coupland’s core group of characters while they are coders at Microsoft. They eventually move on to work on a new computer game start-up company and begin to look for lives outside of their work. The characters are interesting and the story is captivating, but the truly unique aspect of Coupland’s work is in the way Daniel’s computer journal reflects the changing face of written communication in this digital age.
“What if machines do have a subconscious of their own…to this end, I’m creating a file of random words that pop into my head, and am feeding these words into a desktop file labeled SUBCONSCIOUS.” (Coupland 44-45) It is with this statement that Daniel begins his computer’s “subconscious” file and fills it with his own random thoughts. An original thought on its own, but even more unique is the visual aspect of these journal entries. There is everything from random numbers to food products, to quotes, and pages of symbols – all typed in different sizes fonts, aligned differently and placed randomly on the journal’s electronic page. The entries occur throughout the novel and are a reminder of the fact that Daniel’s is a laptop journal. In 1995, keeping a computer journal was quite high tech, and Daniel interspersed his with a lot of really high tech (for the time) things like emoticons – symbols like : ) that represent emotions. However, even Coupland’s cutting edge tech world seems dated when compared with the digital communication that many people now use on a day to day basis.
Microserfs was published in 1995, as the age of the Internet and e-mail was just beginning. In the nearly fifteen years that have passed since Microserfs was published, the digital age has come upon us full force. In addition to the ever-present Internet and e-mail, we now have text messaging (which has almost completely replaced the hand-written note and, to some extent, phone calls), blogs (which are taking the place of diaries and journals, and, in some cases, even newspaper columns), message boards and comment posting (replacing newspaper editorials), and social networking sites (keeping us up-to-date more than ever before on the goings on of others’ lives).
While Daniel was simply keeping a traditional diary stored on his hard drive rather than on paper, nowadays people are turning to blogging as a way to record their personal thoughts and life occurrences. According to a 2004 Washington Times Article, “For millions of Internet users, Web logs also are places to keep personal journals or diaries ultimately at the disposal and in plain view of the Web-surfing public. Although diaries traditionally are considered personal and for the writer's eyes only, authors of online diaries don't seem to care that Internet users all over the world can see what they write.” (Doolittle, “Blogs used as diaries,” par. 2) So, not only are people using their computers to type their diary entries, they are using online blogs to publish them for the world to see. Blogs oftentimes seem to have the same type of content as a traditional diary, but according to the same article, many people who post to blogs also keep a handwritten journal when they are writing about things that they are truly private. It seems that bloggers “want to tell the world a certain percentage of their life and their feelings, but that sharing only goes so far…you get down to the second or third level of feelings and those are intensely personal; [people] aren't ready to share that online so they... keep a paper journal." (Doolittle, “Blogs used as diaries,” par. 14) Many decry the digital age as being impersonal, but it seems that the interactivity of being online is a main reason that many blog rather than keep their thoughts to themselves. In addition, many communication experts see blogs as the natural progression of communication in this day and age. “Everyone has a story to tell…Thousands of years ago, people gathered around campfires in caves and talked about what was interesting to them. Twenty years ago, people told it around the water cooler at work. ... That has all been transplanted to the Web. It's just another outlet for human beings to do something they have been doing for millenniums.” (Doolittle, “Blogs used as diaries,” par. 16) There are those, however, who worry that “an important source for future historians will be lost unless the best examples of online logs are saved.” (“Dear blog, I have a secret”, par.2 )
E-mail is another form of communication highlighted by Coupland. Daniel includes his e-mail communications with his friend Abe in some of his journal entries. Early in the novel, he talks about how e-mail use is being “pioneered” (Coupland 21) at Microsoft and says he is an “e-mail addict. Everyone at Microsoft is an e-mail addict.” (21) He goes on to say that the average amount of e-mail received per day is 60 pieces, but only about 40% of it is worth reading. (22) It seems that these types of descriptions of e-mail are included to inform the reader about e-mail in 1995, whereas today, it seems almost unimaginable that someone would not be familiar with e-mail. It is interesting, however, that in Microserfs, when Michael gets the news that his father has been fired from IBM, he talks about telling his friend Susan and says, “The news about Dad was too important for e-mail, and we had lunch together.”(21) I find this statement to be important, because it shows the somewhat casual and unofficial nature of e-mail, especially when it was first appearing as a form of communication. However, e-mail has now evolved and is now almost taking the place of many other forms of written communication. Whereas handwritten signatures were once needed for contracts, electronic signatures are now acceptable. E-mail and other electronic sources of communication are now on par or even preferred to traditionally produced communication. In 1993, The Albany Times Union published an article touting the popularity of e-mail and its advantages. According to the article, “Some sociologists think that e-mail may mark the end of the decline in written communication that began with the invention of the telephone,” however, “while conversations on telephones are lost forever for historians, e-mail, like personal mail, leaves a ‘paper trail’ marking a person's life.” (Brandon, “E-mails is message of future”, par. 14-15) The article goes on to say that e-mail is so fascinating because one person can send a message to 1,000 people as easily as they can to one person and mentions how posting messages to online bulletin boards can produce dramatic results when seeking advice about something, such as how to fix your car. (Brandon) In 1993, these characteristics of e-mail seemed new and amazing. But now it is the usual, everyday, almost mundane experience of most Americans to send and receive e-mail, to log on to the Internet, and to participate in the digital world.
Technology is invading our lives more and more each day. From blogs and e-mails to text messages and Facebook, we communicate with one another electronically nearly as much as we do face to face. Text messaging has even brought about a whole new aspect of the English language. Universities are incorporating the study of text speak into English courses. We get our music, news, and much more from the Internet; and although digitized communication may have become the norm and has nearly taken the place of many written forms of communication, I think the overall theme of Coupland’s Microserfs provides us with some perspective. In the midst of the characters’ completely high tech world, all they really want is relationships with other people – friends, family, and lovers. When Daniel’s mother, who has become a mother to everyone in his group of friends, suffers a stroke, everyone is affected. Finally, one of Daniel’s friends discovers a way that she can use a computer to communicate since she has lost the ability to talk. It is a truly touching moment in the novel, and it is poignant in that this super high tech world that they are living in is being used to do what humans have done since the beginning of time – connect with one another. It is just another tool we can use to accomplish it.


Works Cited
Brandon, Craig. “E-MAIL IS THE MESSAGE OF THE FUTURE.(MAIN)." Albany Times Union (Albany,
NY). Thomson Scientific, Inc. 1993. HighBeam Research. 28 Apr. 2009 <http://www.highbeam.com>.
Coupland, Douglas. Microserfs. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995.
"Dear blog, I have a big secret." Evening Standard - London. Associated Newspapers Ltd. 2007.
HighBeam Research. 28 Apr. 2009 <http://www.highbeam.com>.
Doolittle, Amy. “Blogs used as diaries; Writers ditch paper, pencils for interaction. (NATION)
(CULTURE, ET CETERA).” The Washingon Tmes. News World Communications, Inc. 2004. Highbeam Research. 26Apr. 2009