Digital life

Journal entry #2

This was my phone growing up. We had three rotary dial phones like this at home but the color was more like a faded pink. Three phones and only one line. One in my parent’s bedroom, one in the hallway and one in the kitchen/ tv area. My friends would call me after school and after - maybe an hour- talking about what just happened at school, our favorite music or the movie we were going to watch that weekend, my mom would pick up her bedroom phone and tell me to hang up because she needed to use the phone. I just told this story to my eight year old who video-calls my parents on my smartphone. I showed him this picture. He was so confused. I couldn’t stop from laughing out loud.

Although rotary phones were invented in 1919 and people didn’t really start to use them until the 1950s. In the same way, push-button phones were invented in 1960, but they became popular in the 1980s. And lastly the first mobile phones were created in 1983 but they really became affordable and common in the 1990s. Nowadays phones are computers, tvs, movie theaters and even more. And everybody changes their phones, willingly or not every two years. Where it took almost 40 years for people to accept and use the first change of phone technology from candlestick type phones to rotary dials, now we accept that technology changes every day, and if we take too long acquiring a new smartphone, then we might be left behind. Like my parents that went from flip mobile phones to samsung smartphones. Missing the whole blackberry wave.

As Negroponte was hilariously explaining in TED Talk how people disregarded his predictions 30 years ago, I was thinking about my own journey into adapting to new technologies. I remember going into my first job and getting labeled as a techie, just because I was not afraid to use the computer and especially the email. I had to help my father during this transition and I remember telling him, you know Dad you don’t have to hit the keyboard like that, it’s not your enemy, it's supposed to make your life easier. Think about it: No more memos. He looked at me, he reflected. But now? Recently I had to ask him for some tips on using Google slides. During this pandemic we helped each other, as we both became experts on zooming and using Google apps on chrome. Him, for his Health and Fitness at Any Age virtual sessions, and me in my Virtual classroom.

This whole virtual / online school year would have not been possible without these advancements in technologies, in everyday life technologies as envisioned by futuristic and curious souls such as Negroponte and many like him.

It has many advantages and some disadvantages. I personally think that the cons outweigh the pros, but in life and society we have to set limits, because with the good and extraordinary comes the bad.

As Teachers we have to keep all these technologies in mind, be open and cautious at the same time as our job has shifted the medium but never the purpose: to help curious minds grow and become successful in a respectful society that helps each other to make it better.

• Greenman, C (1999) When dials where round and clicks where plenty. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/07/technology/when-dials-were-round-and-clicks-were-plentiful.html

• Nicholas Negroponte: A 30-year history of the future User: TED - Added: 7/8/14
  

YouTube URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b5BDoddOLA