I’m a child of the 80s through and through. Few other generations saw so many technological changes in so little time. I’ve grown up with 8-tracks, records and cassettes. I've watched movies on Beta, VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray. I’ve always embraced technology—one could say it came easily to me. I was six when I figured out how to set the time on the Beta and my father was amazed. He and his friends had stared at it forever and just gave up trying.
I grew up talking on a landline phone with only one line. That meant people sometimes picked it up and yelled, “I need the phone!” during my very important childhood conversations. Things were simple then—you made plans with someone on the phone and told them you’d meet them at a certain place and time. You showed up at that place on time. You hung out. You got home for supper on time, or else!
Now we have very loose or vague plans to meet somewhere at some time. If you’re running late, you text the person and say, “Sorry, on my way!” and they text back something profound like, “K.” You waste time looking at your phone because it just beeped to tell you the person just said, “K.” You hastily put your phone away in your purse and don’t hear the next message from the person saying something like, “I got tired of waiting over there, so I’m over here now,” and you spend more time running around trying to find each other than actually sitting down and enjoying coffee—face-to-face. Like coffee should be. Call me old fashioned.
Half the time I can’t even answer my cell phone because some tiny flash of light is hitting the touchscreen and it doesn’t notice my frantic fingers swiping like a madwoman trying to answer it. If you call me and all you hear is, “Damn piece of s*it phone, %$&^ you…Hello!” don’t take it personally.
I never wanted to turn into my father and have a piece of technology confuse me, but I fear it is happening. The first sign was when Google Glass came out and I kept calling them Google Glasses. And I know some day my son will get his first pair of Google Glass (still sounds weird to me!) and I’ll say something like, “Take off those Google Glasses when you’re at the table! And turn off your brain embedded Bluetooth when I’m talking to you!” It’s going to happen, I know it, and I’m not sure what I can do about it.
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