I have a six year old IBM (Lenovo?) Thinkpad computer, an 8 year old Ipod, a two year old Kindle... and now I've said goodbye to my BlackBerry who was only a year and a half. I don't miss it, don't worry. Obviously, I'm obsessed with my Iphone.
Meet EmIphone: (she's only four days old, so be gentle with your comments)
The Friends and I are playing with Words :
The other night I learned how to drink beer from my phone,
As I tap and swipe away I've been thinking about technology. I'm no expert but I do remember my first Nokia phone and how all I wanted after that was the Motorola StarTac. (they weren't "Zack Morris Phones" back then, but now they kind of are.) I was the only one of my college roommates to have a cell phone our freshman year at NYU, so that was the number we gave to people we met trying to reach us at night(smart, girls, right?) Of course this was before everyone was "checking into Starbucks with five others." It was even before everyone was "checking into rehab..."
After the coveted StarTac, the next challenge was to find THE SMALLEST PHONE EVER.(I lost two)
Around that time, business men were starting to get these things called BlackBerries (or BlackBerrys--I'm not sure the correct pluralization of aforementioned phone). I knew I didn't need one because it was for people that needed their email 24/7 for work and such (and they were bulky--not clutch purse friendly). Then people like me started to get them. While it would be pretty nice to have, as they became cooler and smaller, did I really need it? No. Until they came out with....The Pearl. It was so cute and stylish. THAT I needed. I also got Mr. Renaissance to switch to a more manly version, The Curve insisting he "needed one too."
Then... the Iphone came out for Verizon and I scoffed saying, do I REALLY need it? I have my email at my fingertips--what do I need with "apps"? People told me: "the Iphone will change your life" and I sort of just thought it was a fun toy. Well, not having a MAC and having just had to clean out my computer because I was down to 4GB of space, I never really knew the crazy amazing Steve Jobs Apple technology. It's pretty amazing.
Though soon something new will come out that "we can't survive without," microchips will be implanted in our brains and we will be calling each other and our pets on the phone soon enough.
I haven't been alive long enough to really witness a drastic change in technology. More like slow changes.
-In middle school a friend of the family help me set up AOL (my first screen name was ILUVDEAN in honor of none other than Dean Cain ...yep, that changed fast). (We would wait for hours for the modem to connect and my camp friends and I would meet every Sunday night in a chatroom - more on camp to follow)
-In my high school class their was that one random kid who took notes on his laptop(crazy!).
-Ethernet was newly installed at NYU when I got there.
-My first roommate in college didn't have a printer and my second didn't have a computer at all.
-When I graduated, I briefly dated someone who didn't have a cellphone ("what? you don't have a cellphone? Yeah, this is over.)
-Text messages came about around my sophomore year in college and it was great to know that if you didn't really have the nerve to call your boyfriend for the umpteenth time, cause it was "boys night" you could just text him, because that really didn't count.
-When I was on tour in 2003, the Ipod came out and it was great for traveling every week. Before I would carry around my discman and a billion CD's. (and yes, I am old enough to remember my bright yellow walkman it was waterproof!
Past:
-When I was on tour in 2003, the Ipod came out and it was great for traveling every week. Before I would carry around my discman and a billion CD's. (and yes, I am old enough to remember my bright yellow walkman it was waterproof!
-The Kindle is great. Yes, I love books, but when you are a night reader it's a lot easier to read with a booklight without moving it every time you turn the page. The dictionary function is great and it's spectacular for apartments already overstuffed with books.
All of the above changes can be used for good or can be used for bad. I'm guilty of being constantly on my computer or phone and that can't be healthy - I'm not talking radiation, just talking life here. I don't know where my CD's are and half were bought of the internet, so if the computer goes when I haven't backed things up, poof goes my music collection. Mr. Renaissance also gets quite annoyed when I'm clicking away on something or another, during our time together, and he's right. (so glad the Iphone is touch screen! and doesn't make a sound shh don't tell him.)
I can definitely type faster than I can write, so I would have loved to have a computer in high school classes.
Appropriate cellphone rules were also established in the last few episodes of Seinfeld. (ie. "The Cell Phone Walk and Talk - when a person calls to convey their concern (for a friend's sick relative), but callously calls from a cellular phone on the street out of convenience"
Here's how Seinfeld feels now:
Very, Very True, Mr. S, but I still love my phone and it's convenient components (maps, email, texting.)
I do love texting. It is a great thing for scheduling and telling your husband you have a massive craving for ice cream, a text he will receive when the F train goes above ground so he can pick it up on his way home. I'm definitely guilty of the overuse of the text. Of interrupting people with silly photos or nonsense.
Here's how Seinfeld feels now:
Very, Very True, Mr. S, but I still love my phone and it's convenient components (maps, email, texting.)
I do love texting. It is a great thing for scheduling and telling your husband you have a massive craving for ice cream, a text he will receive when the F train goes above ground so he can pick it up on his way home. I'm definitely guilty of the overuse of the text. Of interrupting people with silly photos or nonsense.
However, my biggest textpeeve (I think I just made that up, and I like it!) has to be the "running late" usage. It's one thing if you really did get stuck on the train, but if you left late and decided to text "Rnning ten min. late, srry! :-(" when the person you are meeting won't get the text until they are already there, that does not make it okay for you to be late.
Email is fantastic for business, but it shouldn't replace a phone call to a loved one during a time of need.
I wonder what changes are still to come. What will I be speaking of when I tell my child "you're so lucky you have that, we had to use CELLPHONES! and DVRs!" I wonder what will be antiquated by the time my future child grows up. I hope I still have a way to play my mothers collection of giant round black things that play music on a thing that turns. My mother tells stories about how she used to listen to baseball games on the radio and often muses what her father would think about being able to pause a ballgame on your tv, rewind it, watch in slow motion, split the screen with another game, or perhaps even switch to a Classic game you saved for exactly the moment when the "live" game goes south.
The day after I got my Iphone I went to a summer camp reunion. I attended Stagedoor Manor, a performing arts camp with many currently working and famous alumns but what we all had in common was that we were outsiders. We were "theater nerds" and found a home there. Now, some say cellphones "change your life". This camp "changed my life." In the way that it changed the lives of people in the 70s through the present and into the future.
My generation of campers would wait in the "phone line" during our free time for hours to make a ten minute phone call home. When I recently visited this past summer and noticed that the lobby was bigger. The phone line was gone... Cellphones. I was appalled they let campers have cellphones and could not picture how different my experiences would have been. To be so distracted. To text your friends and roommates. Sure, we lived a pretty cushy camp existence in an old Catskills hotel, with a shower in every room, but I don't think cellphones there would have been good. I would have over-used it and taken away from the experience. The phone room being gone was strange to me, but probably isn't to the current campers. A phone room, perhaps might not even have existed there at one point in the past. Its existence might have been strange to campers before my time.
My generation of campers would wait in the "phone line" during our free time for hours to make a ten minute phone call home. When I recently visited this past summer and noticed that the lobby was bigger. The phone line was gone... Cellphones. I was appalled they let campers have cellphones and could not picture how different my experiences would have been. To be so distracted. To text your friends and roommates. Sure, we lived a pretty cushy camp existence in an old Catskills hotel, with a shower in every room, but I don't think cellphones there would have been good. I would have over-used it and taken away from the experience. The phone room being gone was strange to me, but probably isn't to the current campers. A phone room, perhaps might not even have existed there at one point in the past. Its existence might have been strange to campers before my time.
At the reunion last night, after a speech was given to thank everyone for coming, congratulate past campers on their hit plays at The Public, Emmy Nomination(s) on hit TV shows, and so on and so fourth, we all just...mingled. The ages spanned from people who attended before and during the year I was born to people who attended with me and after me. Nobody was texting. Nobody was talking on their cellphones. Everyone was just...talking. Sure the phones got whipped out every once in a while to snap a photo and post it to facebook, but more so that people who weren't there could see them in real time. There we stood ages 25-60 drawn there by the same common bond that brought us to Stagedoor in the first place. Not by technology. Not distracted by technology. But for the first time in a long time, we were all in the moment. Of course how did we all get there? Facebook invite. And what did I learn on the way home (from someone over fifty, who has taught me much, much more than just this?) That ibeer is a hilarious app(it is.) But really, I learned much, much more: Technology, when used right can bring people together, it can make things easier, but it can also be dangerous. You can invite people to a party and not have to worry about calling them and having them say no. Technology can be bad, when it's 12:39AM and you are blogging in bed next to your handsome husband and really NEED to put the computer down.
Past:
Present:
Future:
See you on the Internet...or perhaps even in person,
Em
Future:
Em
