I have a confession to make. I have spent a good deal of the last 72 hours with this toy. It is my/our very first cell phone. An iPhone 5s. We are having great fun playing with it. And learning about it. I was able to justify it by using my business “need” of one and my age. You know, as we get older we need one “for emergencies”. 😉
My boarder, bless her soul, has been teaching me how to use it. She is having a great laugh watching my reactions when she shows me what I can do with it. Tonight we uploaded music from my laptop, added some friends’ phone numbers, and sent them text messages. This could get dangerous! 🙂
I must admit though, I like the larger laptop keyboard better for typing.
I marvel at what technology can do in our lives now. When I was a child it was a wood stove for heat and cooking, and we just had electricity for lights and plugs. We had to buy a lightning rod so the electricity wouldn’t go out every time we had a thunderstorm.
The phone was on the wall and we had to crank the handle to get it to work…on the party line…with the switchboard operator (who also happened to be the post mistress) listening in on all our calls, and passing around the choice bits of “news” with her own special twist.
I remember being about five years old when the first black and white cabinet TV made its way into our home. I used to sit with my older brothers and my sisters absolutely spellbound by “Batman” and Robin antics.
I remember using an abacus and slide rule. I was thankful when calculators were finally accepted in the classroom for school use. Now kids have computers to work with…iPads, iPhones, etc. and the Internet.
We have wi fi and cellular…that’s quite a step to make in 50 years. Technology has revolutionized the world – the way we work, live, talk, and think. I can’t help wondering what the next 50 years will bring.
How has technology impacted your life? Am I the only one out here who remembers the “Dark Ages” of technology? When was the seminal moment you realized your life was going to change because of a particular piece of technology? For me it came with the TV, and then with the computer. Life has never been the same since those two came on tap for me.
Enjoy your phone. Interestingly we are unplugging our children more and more as we see the bad effects of technology. They lose fine motor skills and have poor hand writing due to only keyboarding. They never learn how to study or make notes properly because they think everything is on the screen. We also see the introverted social skills formed with video gaming. We now limit screen time, encourage drawing and crafting, and have taken to playing board games as a family (plus battling the school system). We are discovering more and more families with our thoughts. The mantra in our house is balance, and the kids have learned quickly if they want to sway us to allow ipads, to do something “old school” first. It is interesting the pluses and minuses of technology. Funnily my most used app is tune in radio……..all this fancy technology and I use it to listen to the “wireless”! LOL!
There are certainly pluses and minuses aren’t there?! When we bought our first computer in 1995 we were homeschooling the girls. I noticed a drop in active learning and engagement with their environment right away. So I put a moratorium on screen time until after they did their schoolwork and had some outdoor time. They also had to have an outdoor sports activity and music class of some sort – voice or piano – every week. They had to have social outings every day.
But they gravitated towards those screens. It drove me crazy! They learned to connect with people in different places through those screens. They learned programming and all kinds of things about technology that I just don’t even know what the names mean. One daughter helped run a local free net for a while. I figured we’d use the computer for something useful for her, and signed her up to Stanford University courses that she could take online.
To compensate for fine motor skills like those used in writing, we introduced them to calligraphy. They were pretty good at it. It led to an interest in the Chinese language with it’s “picture” alphabet. We had a pretty intensive art program because that’s my specialty. That and English.
Still, for all that, I loved the times when the computer went into the shop for repairs, and dreaded getting it back. If it wasn’t around, real learning was happening…exploration of the environment, creative work, experimentation. It was great! Sigh… Balance is key.
You know, I am always reminded of an internet conversation I read once about “too much screen time” – and one of the commenters (a home-schooling mom, too!) volunteered than in the olden days people used to complain about kids that read “too many books” and didn’t get enough out and “really play.” Amazing to think of that you could have a child that read too much! I think that as technology becomes part of our lives, it does become important to keep up with it. It’s a cultural thing and keeps us connected as a society. This doesn’t mean you need to run out and buy the biggest and latest doodad, of course, but it is an important part of our lives and I don’t think its wise to simply ignore it.
So true Sara. That’s one reason we caved and bought a cell phone. We were starting to feel like dinosaurs here. It’s also just much easier to stay in contact with the girls and friends if we can text them occasionally. I must admit to being concerned about becoming like some people who put off accessing technology so long that when they do get it, they are unable to adjust to it. Seems that happens the older one gets.