Several years ago, someone wrote a book entitled “Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” While we do learn important skills in those early days of school-hood, to be honest, most of what I learned in kindergarten back in the late sixties is now available on DVD rated “birth to 12 months.” My in-laws recently confirmed, after looking at first-day-of-school homework, that no one in the family is smarter than a fifth grader.
Reading, writing, and arithmetic have been replaced by communication arts and new math. What we researched from the encyclopedias my parents got from friends whose kids had already graduated high school is now available in up-to-the-nanosecond detail on a smartphone web browser. What we eked out in pencil on wide-ruled notebook paper over two laborious hours can be generated by keyboard and printed in illustrated living color, with bold and italics for emphasis, in about 30 minutes. I used to wonder why we never had PCs in our classroom in high school, until the day I learned that the first IBM-compatible PC came out the year I graduated.
Feel old yet? I sure do…
My Grandma never even imagined the things I take for granted in my daily existence. Take, for instance, a recent trip to the in-laws. While others were seeing the USA in their Chevrolets, I kept up with E-Mail and Facebook from the front passenger seat of our Ford. I posted a blog entry while my husband circled Indianapolis on the 465. I paid several monthly bills by cell phone a little east of Effingham.
I hesitate to admit this, but we actually had three (yes, three) computers along for the ride; my work computer in case I needed to connect back to the office, my Netbook since I wanted to update Facebook and my blog, and our full-size laptop because hubby wanted to show pictures on DVD from one of his dive trips and my Netbook doesn’t have a CD/DVD reader. Hubby also had his E-Reader, which allowed him to listen to an audio rendering of his current book (good thing since there’s not usually much on the radio and we don’t have the same taste in music).
And yet, I am the old schooler in the world of twenty-somethings and school agers. I do text on my cell phone, but if I need to communicate more than a few words I can still call faster than I can type. My idea of social networking is updating my E-Mail contact list and posting to Facebook walls. I’m still struggling with the idea that “tweet” is not the noise made by an adorable little yellow bird. Not that I don’t care or don’t want to be current; I just can’t keep up with all the new gadgetry at the same time I’m trying to keep up with a job, laundry, dishes, and all the other stuff that goes on in my life. I’m a working girl, you know.
Hmmm….. laundry and dishes…. that’s what Rosie used to do for the Jetsons. Now there’s a technological advancement that would revolutionize my world. I’d have plenty of time to keep up then.
Any of you technology inventor types out there up for a challenge?