My students have no concept of what it is like to grow up without the amount of technology in their life. They have nearly all grown up with computers. From the day they were born their life can be tracked through Facebook, blogs, or similar. Facebook is something that did not become popular until I was in college. I remember growing up and having to use dial up to access the internet and even then it was not very often because it took so long. Another experience that many of my students might have no concept of is being able to freely play outside with kids in the neighborhood. Living in a small mountain town I would have to say that perhaps more kids have experienced that here than students living in either city or suburbs would. My own nephews in Denver are not allowed to play out front unsupervised. I understand the need for safety, but it is something that I really enjoyed doing as a child, but our culture has changed so much that there is a fear of allowing children to play unattended.
Likewise, each generation changes from the last. I do not have a concept of what life without a television is like. So much of my free time is spent watching tv shows and movies. Although technology is great and can be quite entertaining, I feel that my generation has had a more difficult time finding ways to entertain themselves without the use of media. Another experience I feel that I don't fully comprehend is communicating at the push of a button or click of the mouse. Communication now is so instant. If I can't get ahold of someone within an hour, I may begin to get frustrated. Whereas back a couple hundred years people did not have this need for "immediate interaction" A letter would be sent as communication and people had to wait until the letter was received, responded to, and once again mailed. Times change and it is important to realize how. There are so many positives that have come out of the rise in technology, but at what point do we forget about how things used to be? There were many positives regarding the way life "used" to be.
