For this journal I chose to interview my Mom(57), Dad(59) and sister (25). I was not able to get one of my grandparents for an interview but I have covered two generations above my own. My parents grew up in a time where technology was not nearly as prevalent in modern life as it is today while my sister grew up right before the tech world blew up. Myself having grown up always having technology it was very interesting to get all there perspectives on how life used to be before technology took over.
How did you stay in touch or contact people?
Dad “I had a landline phone in my house growing up but my sister was usually using it, personally I would just walk to my buddies homes and talk to them. It wasn’t until cell phones became popular that people always stayed in touch”
Mom “I would call my friends and talk on the phone but with relatives or close friends sometimes I would write a letter”
Sister “I had a flip phone around 13ish so I would always text my friends, it was never really any different than now other than cell plans would charge you if you texted too much”
How much TV did you usually watch, how was it different?
Dad “I would only watch tv when my shows where on, we couldn’t stream tv on netflix so you would have to wait for the shows you wanted and tune in for them, But I do remember when I was very little we had an old black and white tv because it was on the side of the road for free”
Mom “I never watched much tv but there weren’t nearly as many shows as there are now”
Sister “we grew up watching the same tv” me and my sister would usually watch tv after school and never thought much of it but we did watch a lot, I remember when netflix first started and you didn’t have to wait for shows to come on air you could just stream them”
What has technology replaced today that most affects you?
Dad “the newspaper, I miss reading the newspaper in the morning now the news is so easy to get on your phone the only people who read newspapers is your grandfather”
Mom “I don’t use it but it seems like social media is the new way people are social with each other, when I was younger your social interactions where within the social groups of people you see everyday”
Sister “I can’t really think of anything that it has replaced but I also grew up just as all these new technologies where coming out so it definitely influenced me and could have replaced something that I would’ve had instead like using computers instead of going to the library to look something up”
How many hours a day did you spend on tech
Dad “ well I was studying to be an engineer so I used computers all the time, old crappy computers but still tech so I’d say about 6ish hours”
Mom “When I was a kid probably 0? But as I grew older and went to college I used them more maybe 2-3 hours a day”
Sister “honestly like 7 hours”
Did tech ever replace absent parent, babysitter? family caretaker? What made this necessary and what effects did it have?
Dad “I never had a babysitter but when I was alone at the house as a kid I would watch tv”
Mom “I don’t think so, I was babysat by the older neighbor girl but only until I was about 5 because than my brothers where old enough to watch us”
Sister “yes, we would often just watch tv when our parents weren’t around it kept us in the house and out of trouble but I can see that having negative effects on children like sitting watching a tv for hours on end can’t be good for anyone”
Overall my parents had less technology growing up, but they also weren’t aware of these technologies so it never negatively affected them. My parents grew up in a time where people were less attached to their screens while my sister grew up in the heat of the technological innovations, I remember when she got the first iPod and it was the wildest thing. We would only listen to songs in the car but once she got the iPod 1 we would always be playing music in the house. Compared to myself my Mom, Dad and Sister were more aware of the tech taking over because they lived in a time before it was so prevalent in everyday life while I grew up always having it around. When I asked all of them what a day without tech would be like both my parents seemed as though it wouldn’t even faze them while my sister refused to imagine a day like that. I think this is a good example of how new generations of people are becoming more dependent on tech in our everyday lives and in a few decades there might not be many people left alive who still value a life without screens.
Peter Vigoda 