Looking Back: Tech Changes (pt. 1)

"Remember, life is just a memory
Remember, close your eyes and you can see
 Remember, think of all that life can be"
 - Remember, by Harry Nilsson

I remember the first computer my parents bought for our family. It was big and clunky but didn’t seem like it at the time. Instead, it was magical: we crowded around as it booted up, the screen buzzing as it came slowly to life. There was the now ancient sound of it dialing up to the internet, all of us waiting with baited breath.  

When the internet was still pretty new, I remember this commercial with a kid trying to persuade his Mom to let him go online by listing the good things you could find there.
“I can look things up for school!” he said. “You can find recipes!” 

Between each cut of him looking pleadingly up at his mom and saying the things they could do online were flashes, subliminal messaging-style, of scarier options: identity theft, kidnapping, porn, etc. The unfolding landscape of the online world was filled with every possibility, both positive and negative. 

 

I remember a time when having a website for one’s company wasn't a given, but was considered a bold venture. Unlike today, when everyone is expected to also have social media and maybe a blog, it was almost extravagant. Would a website be worth the cost and effort? Would people really get online just to check it out? In town, a new restaurant popped up called “ChineseFood.com”, because anything .com was still a novelty. The restaurant was there for years, long enough for the name to become meta. 

 

Before getting a computer, I learned to type on a typewriter. I enjoyed it. The keys make such a satisfying sound, and seeing the words instantly appear as physical ink on paper can feel a bit magical. Like any good student in the 90’s, I also eventually did plenty of typing practice on the computer. My family had the Mavis Beacon typing program. With it, I practiced speed, accuracy, and typing from dictation. Yet even before typing practice, there was mouse practice. No joke: our computer came with a little game in which you had to practice clicking on objects and moving them around. I believe it was an underwater scene: clicking on the treasure chest, getting it to open, hooking the anchor to the handle, and so on. Since it was the first computer program we ever used, my siblings and I found it highly entertaining. Nowadays, kids are learning basic hand-eye coordination by successfully moving their fingers across a screen. Over time, everything has become faster, smaller, and is introduced younger. 

 

I remember my Dad getting his first pager when I was about ten. My Mom was pregnant, and he wanted her to better reach him when she went into labor. Isn’t it crazy to think about having a device where you'd see someone's number pop up so you'd know to go find the nearest payphone and give them a ring? Now, nearly everyone is reachable from anywhere, and people are apologetic when they aren’t. ("So sorry, I forgot my phone/my battery died/I didn’t hear it"). As a child, I practiced phone etiquette, because in the days before caller ID, you never knew who was calling, and should be polite and ready at all times. I also practiced looking things up in phone books: those massive, heavy tomes in constant need of updating. You'd page through, find the number you needed, and haul the book over to the corded phone to make your call. The invention of smart phones, and being able to store numbers right there in your phone, was a game changer. I got my first cell phone, a flip phone, when I was eighteen. I recall excitedly assigning speed dials to my closest contacts. Later on, I upgraded to a phone which could connect to the internet, letting me look up any number, or anything else, from a device in my palm. A portable computer, when just a decade earlier we'd been crammed around a screen plugged into the phone jack. 

I was fifteen when the world feared Y2K. The year 2000: would computers really crash and send the world into a tailspin? Such fears seem laughable now, and even though my family knew the concerns were likely spun out of proportion, still, you just didn't know. Better to be a little prepared than not, should the new millennium actually signal the apocalypse. 

 

 Instead, my youngest sibling was born in 2000. It’s fascinating to me that she and so many others have never known a world before computers and cell phones. Every year brings new changes, and as a society, we're adapting to them faster, and with more confidence. We continue forward, wiring our homes to be run from our phones, using 3D printers for just about anything, having failed experiments such as Google Glass, getting AI so smart it's scary, and pushing the boundaries of what humanity is capable of achieving. It's fascinating to look back to see how far we've come, and how quickly. A friend of mine is collecting old computers because he hopes to curate them for a museum. I like this idea of showing these changes. I enjoy the nostalgia of appreciating the old things in the midst of the new, the way that the hipsters and Millennials can be thanked for bringing back record players and typewriters. The old and new in harmony; music played from both vinyl and bluetooth, and words typed on a screen or in permanent ink. The one thing I don't see making a comeback?  Pagers and pay phones. 

At least not yet.