I remember the first time I ever sent an email. It was in 1996 and I was a junior at Clarion. I sat in disbelief that my mom would get the message immediately. I’ve always been a letter writer and was used to communicating by US postal mail.
I remember my first cell phone that was the size of a brick, but I was so excited to be able to make calls from wherever I was, without having to find a payphone.
I remember the first time I sent an email and made a call on my cell phone (before that, my friends and I used pagers that we thought were pretty cool) were just the first of many firsts that remain vivid in my memory.
I remember my first text message in 2002, how it startled me, as did my first photo taken with a camera phone. Even my first digital photo was thrilling (I didn’t have to send the film to be developed), and more so when I was able to send a photo of where I was at that very moment.
I remember my dad’s first video camera around 1990, into which we inserted a full size VHS tape that had to be played in a VCR. In the 8o’s and 90’s, our old computer games eventually were replaced by Nintendo; recording music videos from MTV and playing them back became the internet; trying to capture songs from the radio onto cassettes turned to burning mix albums; these were gems of my childhood that shaped my technological literacy.
What surprises me the most about our constantly developing technology is the things I never imagined could be possible, I’ve seen become possible. Things I could have never imagined growing up, like Facebook. When I see today’s younger generation becoming literate with social media and e-texts, I know that they could never imagine what it was like for me growing up without it. I passed notes in school, from elementary through secondary, and still have a bag of the folded, faded short letters that had been slipped under a desk or into my locker. I imagine that today’s youth would find this pointless when they can send messages immediately through their phones.
Today I tend to avoid what I’m not familiar with. I prefer turning paper pages, sending paper letters, smelling fresh print, and doodling with colorful pens.