If you are the sort of masochist who likes to feel old, try telling your kids that you grew up before every house had a computer and that hardly anybody you knew had a cordless phone, let alone a smart phone. Inevitably, mine ask, ”But what did you do for fun?”
Technology has suffused modern life. It’s made life easier in innumerable ways. I haven’t had to remember a phone number in five years and thanks to eBooks I was able to purge hundreds of books from my library. It’s not without its drawbacks though.
I’ve noticed that nobody ever pays attention to the people around them anymore. I’m as guilty of it as anybody else. My husband and I look at Facebook on our phones instead of talking to each other every time we go out to eat.
Bad news spreads farther, faster than it ever could before. I’ve had to learn to filter what I read so that I don’t spend the entire day feeling anxious about the mean world we live in. People were committing crimes just as vile in years past, it was just never headline news unless it happened in the next town over.
Negatives aside, I’m excited by the technology I have access to. I love my iPad beyond all reason. My entire world filters through the screen. I stream music while I write, surf the Internet, watch movies, read books, create art journal pages, and dozens of other tasks on a device that’s small enough to slip into my purse.
I love the way my kids have benefited from technological advances. My 6 year old uses my iPad to play educational games and study flashcards. My older sons have learned how to use the Internet to look up information for school reports or just things that they are curious about. The school my friend’s son attends issued all the kids iPads instead of textbooks. Amazing.
Technology has even improved my marriage. My husband set up his office in an outbuilding on our property. My office is in the main house. We use text messages and Facebook to communicate while we pursue separate interests.
Things have changed a lot in the past decade. Sometimes I feel nostalgic about the way things used to be, but then I remember that thanks to technology I can work from the beach. I think it’s a fair trade.
