The Book of Me, Written by You - Week 26 - Technology

The Book Of Me, Written By You is a 15 month project set up by Julie Goucher at Anglers Rest.

Each week there are prompts which require answering.

Week 26 - Technology

Nokia 3410
(Image link:
www.wikipedia.org,
Author: Erik Baas,
6 Dec 2009,
accessed 22 Feb 2014)

I have seen quite a lot of technological changes and yet I am only young (in my late 20's), but for my parents and grandparents in their lifetimes have seen much, much more change.

I remember getting my first mobile phone when I was about 16 years old. It was a brick and had a big aerial, I cannot remember which model it was, but I remember getting a Nokia 3410 not long later. I remember the hugely pixelated screens and the game SNAKE which every one loved, but there was no access to the internet and no other games available other than what was inbuilt into the phones. You could buy polyphonic ring tones, which looking back sounded ridiculous!! There were no cameras or music players they were solely phones with the ability to text people. I can remember gradually upgrading my phone handsets and remember getting my first Sony Walkman phone which had a great inbuilt music player and the development of cameras on phones as well. Latterly, I remember getting my first smartphone and not knowing how to make a call on it!!! Now, I can check my emails, Facebook, take photos, watch TV or films, listen to music, play hundreds of games and have access to nearly everything on my mobile phone, it is incredible how in the last 10 years mobile phones have changed immensely.  How did we survive when we did not have everybody at our fingertips 24/7.

The internet and our access to the internet has also changed immensely. I think we first got dial up internet at home in about 1999/2000. If you were on the internet no one could ring you on the house phone, so we had to check the answer phone after coming offline. If my parents needed to make a phone call we had to wait before we could go back on the internet. Now, you can have the phone and internet running together and without wires as well. The amount of information one can access online has changed life phenomenally, there is no longer the need for a family to own an Encyclopaedia to do one's homework with.

Computers have decreased in size and speed as well. I remember when people only owned desk tops but now we can use tablets and laptops, which are decreasing in size yet increasing in capacity and speed. I remember having lots of floppy disks to save computer files onto, whereas now you can use dropboxes online or use a memory stick, which you can attach to your keys.

Cassette tape
(Image link: www.wikipedia.org, Author: GRAHAMUK,
  20 Dec 2004, accessed 22 Feb 2014)

Some friends of ours were reminiscing about when we would record the charts onto cassette tapes and how annoying it was when the tape machine ate the tape and destroyed it. Now we can get any music at our fingertips on the internet, with programmes such as Spotify, we don't even have to own the albums or CDs anymore. For my 18th birthday I was given a minidisc player which was so cool at the time, but they never really took off and died a slow death with the invention of MP3.

Do you remember cameras and photography before the age of digital cameras? You took photos and then would have to send off the films for development which could take up to a week before receiving the photos back. When the photos were returned you then realised that you'd missed the head off Great Uncle George on that only family reunion of the decade!!! Now, you can take as many photos as you like without having to worry about paying to develop the rubbish ones. You can quickly delete that awful photo in which you seem to have developed a double chin. You can even take photos on your mobile so you do not need to carry a phone and a camera with you everywhere. You can snap anything in an instant.

I do not ever remember being the first to get new technology but do keep reasonably up to date. I tend to wait until they come down in price and people have reviewed them before splashing out.

Technology is sooooo useful where would we be without the internet, our mobile phones, cameras, music playing systems in our lives these days!