Network Prism -- College Students' Online Confessions: College Students' Online Confessions

Author: Hongyan Leng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: The contact in the chat room made me feel a surge of passion. I decided: ask her out. But when I saw her approaching like a blue storm, I couldn’t help but break into a cold sweat. Oh my! She wasn’t the "Zhang Ziyi" I met in the chat room self-introduction. She was clearly Zheng Haixia, the tall and imposing sister I had always respected and admired since my childhood. I missed my father alone at home, and tears blurred my vision. Late at night, I logged into my email and wrote down my deepest feelings, filled with resentment and guilt toward my father. I communicated with my father online, sharing our thoughts. It seemed there was no distance between us. In each other’s worlds, we were lonely, but this loneliness could be shared—in the space woven by the internet. I’m a ghostwriter, but I don’t kill. I distributed flyers online, changing my nickname to "Papers for Sale." I met all kinds of people. There weren’t many decent people who paid others to write papers, but they supported me. I saved money desperately to stay online. In the internet world, I could roam freely, but in reality, I had to face a bag of instant noodles and a piece of fermented tofu. University life online was about to end, not just whether the future workplace could access the internet or if there were internet cafes nearby. Sigh, I checked my pockets, and there were still a few coins left. I looked up—oh? Wasn’t that an internet cafe over there!