Technology has made such a huge impact on everyone's lives since it was invented, and not many people in the world can escape its benefits and its consequences. Our generation is a transitional generation, which means we remember a time without technology in our daily lives and we live when it is present everywhere.
My first personal technology device was a DSI XL on my sixth birthday. I used technology as a form of entertainment first, instead of communication like I do now.
I had many DS games and I enjoyed playing them until I turned 10, when I got my iPod touch. With my iPod, I wasn't able to text without wifi or call anyone. I’m glad my parents did that because that restraint on my communication created safety for me as a young girl having access to the Internet. Because of the inability to communicate, I used my Ipod Touch mainly for entertainment purposes. I had many fun apps like Crossy Road and Candy Crush on it.
I remember, before everyone had phones in school, how I had to ask my friends for their parents phone numbers so we could hang out after school. It is probably still common for kids at that young age to have their parents communicate for them, but it was more common when there were less people with cell phones.
I remember a time in my life where I woke up and ran downstairs to play Barbies with my sisters. My sisters and I used to play outside for hours and every second of our lives were not touched by technology. We had a small tv on the kitchen counter that had regular tv channels that we could watch while eating. It used to be so entertaining, in contrast to now when we have the ability to watch anything we want when we eat. My mom always had a phone, although over the years it’s moved from a flip phone to an iPhone 15.
Sadly, when I got my iPod touch for my 10th birthday, I started to ignore my little sister. I was obsessed with playing games on it and watching random youtube videos. It was mind numbing things that I watched that just passed the time that I would regularly enjoy while playing with toys or outside.
Recently, we opened up our "baby boxes'' and my little sister read her diary from when she was younger. She read page after page of little her writing how much she missed her older sister and how I had changed so much since getting an iPod and how all she wanted to do was play with me. She and I used to be two peas in a pod, but because I had technology introduced in my life at such a young age, I had hurt my relationship with her.
I got my first cellphone freshman year of highschool. I was so excited to finally be able to text people without needing wifi, call people instead of facetime, and to have a longer battery life. At this point, all my friends had had phones for a couple years. My best friend since childhood got her first phone in fourth grade, which was a little early in my opinion. In high school, our iPhones became more for communication than entertainment.
Instead of playing games, we started to text more and snapchat more for instant communication. Instagram and Tiktok are used for a less instant form of communication, while also an entertainment. You could also argue that communication is entertainment because our attention span is occupied while we are texting or snapchatting.
I definitely rely too much on technology in my everyday life, but it has become such a part of our daily norm that I don't think we'll ever go back to not using it. I wake up, check my texts, I take my laptop to classes, and use Tik Tok when I’m bored.
Technology has been great for instant communication in my life, but I also spend too much time watching Tiktok videos instead of doing something that contributes something to my life. It’s just the time we grow up in, so instead of wishing things were different, I’m thankful that I have technology in my life to make my life easier.
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