Do you ever get nostalgic about your quaint start in the world of technology? Whether you flash back to using punch cards to program a computer the size of a small country or you recall the rush of talking to someone at the low cost of $34 per minute on your “car phone” for the first time (and you can eloquently explain the difference between a “car phone” and a “cell phone), technology’s evolution has certainly been interesting to watch. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a trip down memory lane to reminisce about “the good ol’ days.”
As a member of Generation Y, I can vaguely recall life before the Internet as it is widely understood today, but to give you a little more perspective, I never used a typewriter for any school papers or projects though I have used a few purely for their “novelty” (ironic, no?). A few of my key events might resonate with you, a few might make you laugh and a few might completely surprise you.
First Computer Interaction
The first computer I remember using was an Apple IIe in “Computer Class” in elementary school. Computer Class was edutainment at its best: Learning Math in Number Munchers, learning Geography in Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? and learning about Dysentery in Oregon Trail.
Class Projects
My first computer-created “project” was a clip-art laden biography of John Adams in 5th grade. Why was it laden with clip art? (1) Because it was a whole new world of expression, and (2) because it was a lot easier to fill pages with semi-relevant pictures than it was with words. I don’t actually recall the process of making the project, but I ran across the fruit of those labors as I moved back to Texas … A+ and a smiley face, thank you very much.
Card Catalogs
I actually learned to use physical card catalogs in libraries, but I was in one of the last classes to learn how to manually look up books (in my school at least). I used the school library through my first year or two of high school, but I didn’t really find a need for it toward the end of my high school career or at all in college.
The “Internet”
Somewhere around the end of elementary school, we got a modem and an AOL account. I didn’t know what the World Wide Web was, but I knew that email, instant messaging and the AOL keyword pages were amazing. I didn’t really consider the Internet an information resource at the time, but I do remember the go-to site I used to find something: www.webcrawler.com. It certainly didn’t own the market like Google does now, but it had my market share for quite a while.
Excessively Connected
Enter 7th grade. And the pager. Why did I need a need a pager when I wasn’t old enough drive anywhere and never actually had change to call from a pay phone if someone actually paged me? I don’t know … I just did. It was a huge ordeal to “deserve” a pager, but once I convinced my parents that I was not actually a drug dealer and that a pager could be helpful to them, I was “connected.”
The Music Landscape
Some might reminisce about the fall of eight-tracks or 45’s, but I can only look back at the way CDs and digital music changed the music landscape. “Record” stores began the slow transitions from cassette tapes to CDs to “Going out of business” signs around this time, though the “Going out of business” signs didn’t seem to crop up for a few years while the digital music revolution was forming. I won my first MP3 player in an 8th grade class raffle: an iRiver something-or-other with a whopping 32MB of memory, but since then, I’ve had four different MP3 players … all iPods.
More Excessively Connected
In 8th grade, I also got a cell phone. I had no real need for a cell phone at the time, but I knew that I had to have one. As I reached driving age, it made a little more sense, but for about a year, it was an egregious status symbol. Cell phones are one area of technology where I find myself especially cynical … “Are you serious? Your 9-year-old needs his/her own cell phone?” … But I would have been that 9-year-old if cell phones were as readily available as they are now, so I can’t really blame those parents.
My Computer
Under the guise of needing a computer to do my homework, I was given my own desktop computer. We were one of the first houses in the neighborhood to get cable Internet, so needless to say, I was cool … in the nerdiest sense of the word. At this point, Windows ME was “new,” so I got to experience the rush of restarting a locked-up systems and reading a lot of error messages in white text on blue backgrounds. My primary mode of internet communication evolved from predominantly IM and chat conversations to predominantly AOL email. Around this time, CD writers became available, so it wasn’t long before everyone started “ripping” and “burning” CDs (both words being used with brand new vernacular definitions).
Silicon Valley-ized
I went to college in the heart of Silicon Valley, so any remnant technological naivety was quickly alleviated. By graduation, I regularly used six different email addresses (none of which involved America Online), four computers, two cell phones, a PDA, and a VOIP phone. I built my desktop computers component-by-component, took notes on my laptop in class (and scoffed at the “pen and paper” folks), worked for two different Web-based tech companies, and plugged into the social side of the Internet as it was emerging … to this day, I will still type “thefacebook.com” to access my Facebook account since I joined before their purchase of “facebook.com,” and the old URL makes me feel original.
Now some people may read those tech highlights and think they are completely commonplace while others will be floored at how all of these new-fangled technologies are corrupting the good ol’ fashioned hard work mentality. And I’m not even in the “Internet Generation.” I’d be really interested to hear how this level of technological-involvement compares to that of an older … err, more experienced person.
-Kevin
October 16th, 2007 at 10:00 am
So… as a more experienced person… I’ll play.
My family was actually technology challenged. My parents didn’t even get an answering machine until I went off to college- just in case they missed my call.
I remember making some sort of clip art stuff on an Apple computer in 8th grade. Basically, we got an image and put some text under it and it printed out in dots. I was so high tech!
My first endeavor with technology ownership was actually a word processor. It looked like a typewriter but had a floppy drive so I could save my papers. I could see 3 lines of text at a time while I was working AND it had spell check. This was my senior year. I was rockin’ on with my bad self. Why would I spent so much money on a computer when I had this little genius invention?
I was one of the first classes at Sam Houston State (eat ‘em up kats!) to get an email address as part of enrollment. My reaction: What am I going to do with this?
My first computer was given to me my senior year. It was an all-in-one job monitor/computer from Compaq. It had a built in 14k modem and 36MB hard drive (or something like that). I was awesome. I’d spend 2 hours dialing in to the internet on campus just to really do nothing but look around.
My first cell phone was circa 1997 and was a flip that weighed like 10 lbs. I never had a pager but both of my younger siblings did. They also had cell phones in high school, too. I had pay phones.
I remember having to wait for the new MLA handbook to come out before I could finish a research paper because no one knew how to reference websites. I think that was Junior year of college.
I actually had someone ask me last week at a conference if I was Generation Y. I wanted to hug her. I mean, I had knob turning TV’s with antennae on the roof growing up. But hey- if she thought I was that young, who am I to let her think otherwise?
October 31st, 2007 at 3:50 pm
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