Framing: Topic, Time, and Place

Anonymous’ earliest memory of computer use comes from the computer lab at her elementary school. Like Musgrave and Dauterman, Anonymous provides a specific location for her narrative, although she does not flesh it out as much as the other creators do, suggesting that she does not—as Musgrave and Dauterman do—see specific spatial characteristics as affecting her interaction with the computers. Furthermore, unlike the others, Anonymous adds a temporal dimension to her story. In addition to indicating the phase of her school career when this memory occurred, Anonymous specifies the frequency with which she used computers during this time, suggesting that this is a significant detail for her. Like the influence exerted by the location of the computers in Musgrave’s and Dauterman’s narratives, the frequency and classroom conditions under which Anonymous first used computers point to access constraints characterizing her early computer literacy experiences. She also seems to connect the school-based and highly structured nature of her weekly visits to the computer lab with her negative memories of the classes taught there. The spatial and temporal frame of the mini-narrative allows Anonymous to recount early technology experience that was less than productive, a critical recollection mirrored at one level in the way she distances herself from the camera and the viewer as she tells her story (discussed further in “Performance” section).