How Technology has Changed in 6 Years
My mom was (and still is) a computer programmer since before computer programming was a thing. I have had a computer in my house since I was 5, perhaps even younger, and I have been using computers just as long. I can remember how big, heavy and plastic our old computer was, the fanciest thing it did was allow us to play Carmen Sandiego on floppy disk (how did floppy disks ever survive my childhood?) From Carmen Sandiego I learned what towhead meant, I learned that Barcelona was in Spain and more importantly I learned that computers made learning stuff way more fun. We still had an entire set of Encyclopedia Britannicas on the bookshelf behind the computer which I would spend hours reading through, but the computer continued to hold an allure of fun that encyclopedias could never contain. The first website I ever visited was Levis.com after the grinding screeching sound of a dial up connection.
Addie has used a computer since she was old enough to know how to treat one kindly. She has skyped with family, IM’ed with her dad at work, drawn squiggly drawings in paint and played PBS kids more times than I can remember. When I think about just how much technology has changed in the time she’s been alive, it makes my head spin. When I was in design school (2004) I had to use a Zip drive to save my work, the most any of the giant disks were capable of holding was 1GB. Right around the end of my degree USB jump drives came out, they were about $40 for 512MB, now companies hand out jump drives by the handfuls at conferences for free … most of them 2GB, some even 4GB or 8GB.
Addie knows how to use my phone to text her grandpa (“Want to Skype? Yes or No”), check the weather, take a picture and call her dad (she also plays a mean game of Angry Birds.) Instead of her being fascinated by how digital everything is she’s now fascinated by simple things like thermometers or being able to predict weather by the clouds or sky. Don’t get me wrong, we spend plenty of time coloring on blank sheets of paper, knocking down dominoes, riding bikes, reading books with real pages and throwing balls at each other, but we also have an appreciation for just how much is available through computers. Rather than treating them as a scary off limit things we’re teaching her that good can be found, good can be done but trouble can be found as well if she’s not careful. There are rules when she is using technology, period.
I’ve noticed lately that while her reading is off the charts, she’s been struggling with math a bit. She hasn’t fallen behind, but her math skills haven’t advanced this year as far as her reading skills have. I work with her everyday now on new or different ways to help her learn math hoping to find something that really clicks. We’ve found a bunch of apps and a few online games that were suggested by a friend that homeschools. I never loved math, but I was good at it. I did well enough to get really good grades, but I had to work at it. I know math and girls is somewhat of a controversial subject and I want Addie to have a positive association with it and through a combination of online games, workbooks and boring old flashcards (as she calls them) I’ve already seen her improve dramatically without draining her of her desire to learn.
Our first laptop, bought when Addie was less than two, had a 100GB hard drive, a big screen, a big price tag and a lot of weight. It was the best laptop that could be bought at the time. Even now at 7 Addie struggles under the weight of the monster computer.
Our latest laptop weighs less than 3 lbs., has the same size hard drive and is three times as fast as the old one for about half the price.
After having her hold the two computers she asked “Why would anyone get a computer THAT BIG?”
Imagine if I showed her a rotary dial phone or the Commadore64 that I used when I was her age.
If this is how far things have come in 6 years, I can only imagine what things will be like six years from now (implanted microchips?)
What has been the biggest change in technology in your kids’ lifetimes?
A special thanks to Intel for providing my family with an Asus Zenbook to experience in our home, I have not been monetarily compensated, asked to post or otherwise influenced, just keeping the FTC happy.
Sadly, I think data mining, tracking and targeted ads are going to expand a lot in the coming years. Greater surveillance without judicial oversight, the increased use of unmanned vehicles in domestic law enforcement, and greater government access and use of citizens’ online activities. Like the author, I have a parent who was a programmer from way back in the day, and have lived with computers and technology my whole life, as do my own children. For the most part, this is beneficial. However, I worry a great deal about the uninformed masses who are giving away data left and right and not fighting for privacy and ownership of one’s personal data, including online activity and social media. I fear that my children will not enjoy the freedom to research whatever they choose online.
Addie is a cute laptop holder.
Are you guys using ixl.com for math? My 5 yr old is loving their kindergarten level stuff, and they have things for older kids too!
Don’t hate me, but there is a little part of me that misses the sound of ‘dial-up’ internet. Yes. I freely admit I am strange.
Timez Attack is pretty popular around here for multiplication and division. They’ve recently added addition and subtraction (beta). @AMI – me, too. I got it as a ring tone. It’s a great selection bias since only the geeky (my people!) notice and identify it.
I used to love playing Carmen Sandiego!! We had it on the giant 5″ floppy disks. I remember when the 3.5 disks came out I thought they were so small! Technology certainly changes fast. I can only imagine what my 3 year old will be using when she is my age.
Woflenstein 3D off of floppies. Oregon Trail- these out when our oldest was little. We had just switched over from our record and cassette tapes to CDs. VHS was winning the war against Betamax. And our first PC had 4MB of ram, a 33Mhz CPU and a 120MB hard drive. But it was fancy- it had a Quad CDRom with a SoundBlastwr sound card. A 13″ monitor and we didn’t even have a printer for a while- and then it was a dot matrix, not ink jet yet, LOL!
My oldest (8) was born before we had a digital camera! (*GASP!*) A friend of mine who I taught with brought the digital camera from school (one that held the 3.5 floppy drive so they were HUGE) for the few digital pictures we had of the little guy. By Christmas (4 months later) we got our own digital camera…but I look at those early days of blurry pictures that we didn’t know were bad until we got the rolls of film back, getting a CD of the pictures so we had a digital copy…and just shake my head. And now my kids don’t even know what film is!
I’m so much older than you that when I was a kid, we had a black and white TV with NO REMOTE. I remember when I was 12, my dad brought home a color Sony Trinitron set with a remote and we all sat in front of it all summer long, completely mesmerized. My kid misplaces our remote and then freaks out because the TV won’t work without it, and then looks at my husband and I like we’re nuts when we tell him that when we were his age, we used to have to get up, walk across the room and TURN A KNOB to change the channel. Oh, and we only had 13 of them, max, rather than the hundreds he’s used to. We recently took our kids to the Air and Space museum, and they were fascinated to find a wall of pay phones outside the restrooms. Those were almost as interesting as the Space Shuttle, and they completely took it for granted that I could take my smartphone out of my purse, take their picture as they pretended to make phone calls, and upload it to Facebook immediately. Also, their dad got them slightly lost on a trail in Nauvoo this summer, and they demanded that he get out his phone, turn on the GPS, and get them back to camp, pronto! Such a different world than the one I grew up in!