Prison inmates are using the internet right now

someday, someone you talk to on the internet could actually be writing to you from inside of prison. 'someday' as in right now, anytime. i don't mean the distant future, i mean it is already happening. they are getting access to cell phones and other wireless devices and using them to read and write on the internet.

but someone inside a prison would have a more limited point of view than someone outside of it would have. they would have, maybe, a more pessimistic and negative spirit, a more hopeless attitude.

they might talk to you on a forum. they might be mysterious about who they are and where they are. they might refuse to answer detailed questions about themselves. they might insist on always remaining anonymous.

if you talk to them about 'doing' anything, like if you enjoy a conversation you're having with them, and you ask them if you could find a way to meet each other in person, they might be mysterious or evasive, and unable to say yes. you might not understand why they cannot meet with you. and you will wonder why it is that they refuse to do anything, but instead just have to talk about things in a sort of wishful, but helpless, way.

they would have all the time in the world to talk about things, but if you ask them to DO something, they will avoid you. if you confront them with too many questions you will get strange and unexpected answers from them.

if you don't know that you're talking to a prison inmate, you won't be able to understand their behavior and their attitudes. but if you can picture it, if you imagine that prison inmates are using cell phones and wireless devices to write on the internet, while still being in prison, then you understand why some people on the internet behave the way they do. it helps you understand why some anonymous people, blogging or writing on forums, might act mysterious or evasive, why they might refuse to do certain things, why they might be hard to reach. it is because they are literally writing from inside a prison, right now.

and they don't want to talk about it, because if they get caught, they could get their hidden cell phones taken away from them, which means they would have no access at all. so they will talk to you, but they will behave in a secretive, evasive way, and it will be hard to understand why they are acting that way.