I feel as if technology did not exist when I was growing up like it does today. Sure, we had a wall phone with a very long spiral cord, TV, and a stereo phonograph, but compared to today, the gadgets were not as significant in daily life as technology is today, especially while we are in a pandemic. Growing up I can remember my dad playing 8-track tapes of polka music in the garage. TV was limited. We had very basic channels and when cable came along, with MTV, it was a whole new world. The phone is by far the greatest advancement if you ask me. I can remember in 1994 when I moved home from Germany and my parents had a cordless phone. Wow! No cord. I would have done anything when I was a teenager to have a cordless phone.
My parents do not have stories about technology, but I have stories about them and technology. My dad is a smart guy, but he has yet to grasp wireless, Wi-Fi, internet, etc. He uses them but he cannot wrap his mind around how it works. He is 81 and uses his Gmail password to try to get into everything that requires a password. I am his backup security email, so I get notifications at least once a week that he changed his Gmail password, of course accidently. Also, he thinks his Gmail is exclusive to his iPad. He does not grasp that he can sign into it just about anywhere. However, I think that having information at his fingertips has been useful for him. Over social media (that will a different post!) he is able to stay in touch with friends and family all over, and that has been really great. My mom died in 2006, and I often think about how much she would have loved technological advancements like Facetime and being able to see who you are talking to.
I have a MacBook Pro, iPad mini, iPhone 8, and Apple watch. At work I use a desktop PC. I am not too concerned about having the latest and greatest, but I like my technology to be up-to-date. If it slows down or cannot be updated, that’s about the time I start looking for a newer model. In our family we have a system where we pass on our old technology onto the next person. For instance, my husband gets my old phones because he just doesn’t care. I’ve also passed on some phones to my son, Sam, who is 23. He has broken and lost so many phones that he is not concerned about having a new phone. My 12-year-old daughter has the newest phone, surprise, surprise!
I like to learn about new technology, but I need to be in the mood for it. We have a new website at work that I update. I used to use Dreamweaver and now it is web-based through Square Space. I have been dragging my feet and there are so many things I need to update. One day I will get the motivation and I will get it done, but it takes that motivation to get there. It is the similar with iTunes. It changes so often that I have lost interest in keeping up-to-date. But one day I will get the motivation to update my gadgets and I will learn all the new features.
At work we do all of our meetings over Zoom now, and I often witness miscommunications. I have also seen this in the university Town Halls. Someone will have a question in the chat, and it is misinterpreted and they either accept the wrong answer or give up. As a bystander, I can see it happening but I’m not in the position to join in and try to clear it up. I have also seen this happen face-to-face, so I think the questions have to be concise when they are on the spot.
When it comes to social media my technology literacy is somewhat limited or stalled. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family all over the world, but it stops there. I have Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat accounts but rarely use them or check them. For me it a matter of time. I have made time in my life (usually in the morning over coffee) for Facebook, but after that, I do not find that I have time for it. In the summertime I like to be outside and ride my bike and now I have my classes and very little free time. If I have free time, I like to spend it with my husband or daughter. I would imagine that younger people might have more time to spend time with social media and maybe more interest. Online dating was before my time. I think that would require a lot of time devoted to corresponding online. Both my husband and daughter love YouTube. For me it is a tool to learn how to do something, usually a frustrating experience! I do not care for video instruction. I would prefer to read it.
I don’t know who the most technological person in my life is. I think there are different degrees. My oldest son who is now 27 used to love technology. When he was home this summer, he told me hadn’t updated his MacBook for years. I was a little shocked. My husband is motivated to learn about some technology, for instance he taught himself InDesign watching YouTube videos for a project at work, but he never updates his phone and his Gmail account is where email goes to die. He never checks it. Then there is my daughter Molly, the 12-year-old; she heard me talking on Zoom for work about infographics. None of us knew how to do them and we were discussing our options. When I hung up, she said I should try Google Slides for infographics and sure enough that worked. She may be the most technologically advanced.
I think technology gets a bad rap. I cannot tell you how many memes talk about how everyone is always on their phone. My son, a history PhD student, told me long ago that the novel when new was like the mobile phone today. It was shunned and criticized if people read in public. People were rotting their minds and turning into antisocial loners. A bell in my head rang when I read our textbook this week and Gutenberg came up. I think that technology is in its heyday with the pandemic. I work online remotely, I order my groceries online, I do my banking online, I read online, I stream TV, I have telemedicine appointments, I am learning online, and if ever there was a time to have technology up-to-date it is now. Thanks to my husband’s time in the military, we have gadgets to keep in touch. Thanks to an employer who let me work at home when my daughter was young, I have a good set up at home. And thanks to being a graduate student, my husband purchased a new wireless printer and office chair for me last fall. I feel for students and for families who do not have technology at this period in time.
