Thursday, February 2, 2012
I interviewed both my mom and my dad about the change they have seen in their life. They both responded similarly, basically saying that the difference between today and when she was my age is tremendous.
My dad would tell me about how their favorite thing to do on Sunday, as they got older, was to watch football. He would tell me how him and his brothers would get into arguments and battles about whose team would win. But, he also said that he marginally spent more time outdoors and away from the T.V. than kids tend to do in today's world. He said, "I just think everything about how we lived then as compared to how we live today is completely different." My dad usually gets one or two jokes in when I see him about me texting. He'll say something along the lines of, "Better give that thing a break so it doesn't overheat boy." But I understand where he's coming from. It doesn't bother me that he makes those jokes, not that they are intended to. I would be the same way as him. I'll be 20 in this May. In 1992, how many people had cellphones?
My mom is pretty much the same way as my dad. They both saw the transition from house phone, to car phone, to cell phone, for example. My mom and dad both agreed that they like how much easier it is to communicate with other people now. They don't have to worry about missing a call when they aren't home because they have their cellphones now. Honenstly, I can't even remember the last time I answered the regular phone at my house.
This however, can also be an example of how reliant we have become on technology. In October (2011), Diana Adams wrote an article titled Then & Now: What a Difference 10 Years Makes. Her article discusses how much easier technology has made things. She writes, "I would rather poke my eyeballs out with a sharpened metal ice pick than use dial-up Internet now." If thats how it feels now, what is it going to feel like in another 20 years?
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Your article really relates to me about the comments your dad makes about the cell phone because my grandma does the same thing. I normally get "Don't any of you communicate face to face anymore?" or something of that sort. Do you feel being a child was better then, when they played outside instead of playing video games, or do you feel being a child is better now while playing video games and having cell phones? I feel if we blended the generations together, having some technology and some outside play and things beyond technology, we could be better off with childhood learning.
ReplyDeleteIt is crazy how much we rely on technology now, and it seems hard to imagine how life was back when we were younger without it, especially when our parents were growing up. Your question at the end of your post is a good one and I do wonder that myself. Because technology is advancing at such a rapid rate it is hard to think about what the future will hold, maybe something like Walle? Well maybe not that dramatic, but I guess anything could happen. Along with what your father said about texting all the time. My mother does that to me as well, making comments on how much I text, especially how fast I can text. My parents are starting to learn more about the new technology. My mother uses the computer regularly, my father now does too, and my mother is improving her texting skills. I always find it amusing when she texts for me while I am driving, because she has to make sure that all the punctuation marks are in the correct place.
ReplyDeleteMy dad would tell me the same stories about he would watch the Giants on television and that the only thing to watch was sports. This is what I do now, but it is interesting that these are the only stories about technology, as we know of it, our fathers had. Now we have so many different types of technology we don't even realize when we are using them.
ReplyDeleteThe internet has surely come a long way, and has probably made us more impatient as well as more reliant on other sources to obtain information. I think sometimes we forget what life was like without it.
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