When television became accessible to normal families my grandparents would have been in middle age, and my parents would have been about ten. I’ve never know anything else. In the space of just a few years technology has rapidly saturated our lives, but the ability of different age groups to use it is markedly different.
One thing I have been thinking about recently is whether I will become like my parents when using new technology in the future. My parents (in their late 50s) use computers and cell phones etc pretty well, but they don’t have the same instinctive knowledge of how to do things. They often need to consult manuals to operate things whereas I don’t, and when they get stuck I often know what to do. I’m sure I’m not alone in this – it’s probably this same situation in families across the developed world, which isn’t to say there aren’t any exceptions. I guess it’s the difference between growing up with television, computers, and cell phones and having to adopt them later in life. For the young people of today the operation of anything electronic comes naturally because it’s all we’ve ever known.
But what I’ve been thinking about is – will I be the same? Or will the skills that I have aquired in my early years help me to grapple with the new things that the future has to offer? I’m just hoping that I can remain tech-savie for the rest of my life. What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know.
