We are between generations. Those who went before us often did it without learning to text, blog, email, and all forms of whatnot. Those who follow us don't have the word "phonograph" in their vocabulary; some have never seen, much less used, a dial phone.
In college, I thought:
1) I would never have any money, so financial planning/theory was a waste of time;
2) I would not become dependent on technology.
As to the first, I do have a little now, and hope to use it up during whatever life I have left.
As to the second, I honestly do not know to what extent I can cut the wires. Most of my work and entertainment involves electrons coursing through copper. Hmm.
So, the questions this time are:
What is you level of technology?
What is your level of dependence?
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I am amazed how much technology has changed from our parents generation to our kids generation. My mother-in-law still uses a typewriter and carbon paper (can you even buy that any more?) because she can not deal with the fact that you don’t hit the return at the end of a line when you are using a word processor. We bought her a cell phone for her to have in case of an emergency. She has no clue how to use it, or any interest in trying to learn. She has two phones in her house, one downstairs and one in the bedroom. She finally got an answering machine two years ago.
As an engineer that mostly writes software, I have been reasonably up to date with computers. I am annoyed when I have to communicate with people don’t have email. I use to use text messaging for work, but now it is too much of a distraction. I had never bothered with the whole blogging thing until John got hold of me. As a horrible speller, I constantly thank God for spell checkers.
I enjoy YouTube and I share pictures with the family on the web. I prefer my music in mp3 format. I haven’t yet jumped into the podcast thing. I have built web sites and created DVDs for my daughters’ various sports teams. This year I am planning on sending out DVDs instead of the Christmas letter.
As far as dependence, have laptop will travel. If I don’t have my laptop and an internet connection, I feel isolated and handcuffed. Both my wife and I use laptops for our work. We bought a Verizon broadband internet card that we share. I now have an internet connection even when I am in the car.
My daughters learned to type when they were in first grade. They were both typing faster than me by third grade. Although they also use a lot of abbreviations like lol, bff, btw, pos (I have seen this everytime I looked at their messenger… I wonder what that means?), etc… not to mention smiley faces and the like. Their cell phones have downloaded songs for the ringtone (mine is always on vibrate, so there never seemed to be any reason to pay for a ringtone) and frequently send pictures and text over the phone. They can txt msg their bff while they are carrying on a normal conversation. I don’t know if I have just completely lost the ability to multitask or if they have just carried it to a whole new level.
I just watched a YouTube video that was created as a project for a Ethonology class at Kansas State University that was about how much schools under utilize technology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o
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