Let Me Explain

I need to apologize.  Or, I need to at least clarify.

     My last post I talked about my grandparents and technology. For starters, I love them very much. I would never do or say anything to hurt their feelings. We lost my dad's parents so I know how blessed I am to be 46 and still have grandparents. The main reason I wanted to clarify is because I am not in much of a different category than them.

     My kids don't go anywhere without their phones. They might as well be a part of their bodies they are so "attached" to them. As far as they are concerned, the world has always had cell phones. They laugh at me when I tell them about getting a car phone when I was in high school. My grandmother gave it to me for my graduation. I was going to school a whole 25 miles from home and being the oldest grandchild, I needed it.  They laugh because when I call it a car phone that's what it was. It's such a crazy idea to them that it was mounted in my car and I didn't take it everywhere with me.

     Computers weren't mobile then either. They weren't a necessity. A friend of mine graduated 3 years before me and I remember my parents trying to figure out what to get him for his graduation. Our families had been very close, his dad was our pharmacist, and they wanted to get him something special. He was going away to college a whole 45 miles away. They went all out and got him the best model they could find of a.............. typewriter. My kids will never have to experience the aggravation of typing the wrong letter, having to paint over the mistake, waiting for it to dry, then typing the correct letter, sometimes two or three times if you got a little crazy and thick with the white out. This typewriter my parents were so proud of was better than that.  It came with correction tape! Yep, it had the convenience of correction ribbon fixing your mistake which looked much better.  Of course we still had to actually go to class and turn in our paper because it was the only way to get it to the teacher.

     It does make one wonder if many of us had ADD or if we didn't have it because we didn't have anything done "instantly."  We did things the long and hard way and it didn't leave much time for our attention to wander. Seriously, we don't have to go to the mall if we don't want to. We don't have to wait days for our order, we can get it in hours. We don't write letters to far away friends and family.  We don't even have to go to the bank or write checks for bills. We have direct deposit and bill pay online. I don't even have to call in take out at most places. I love this one because there isn't as much room for the person on the other end of the phone to misunderstand me. If they get the order wrong, I have the email confirmation so it isn't he said/she said. Banking online has been something I am a little afraid of. I worry about all that information anyone can get to.

     Then again, thieves have it easy too.  They don't even have to reach into your pocket, they can just stand next to you and copy everything on that all so wonderful cell phone.