Technology has come a long way in my 46 years on Earth. Not as much as my grandparents though, who went from the horse and cart , to seeing space travel and Internet in their lifetimes.

When I was little (in Scotland) we had the color television in the living room and a small portable black and white one in the bedroom. It was great! The aerial often gave us a fuzzy picture and we had to readjust the rabbit ears inside or hit the side of the unit in the hope something would jolt into place.

My siblings and I were the remote control , getting up to twist the knob to change to one of four channels available. We laughed at slapstick old black and white comedies like Laurel and Hardy, and cartoons on a Saturday morning. The channels ended at midnight after the blessing from the religious minister and the TV went dark. That’s all there was , and no one made a fuss. There was no argument as to what to watch and everyone had watched the same programs the night before. No 500 channels available.

When we wanted shows on demand, my father had a movie projector that played reels of film and often burned the film in a white and brown bubbling mess on the screen as it ran through! Loud boos and despair from all involved.

The next big thing for our family was a video recorder ! How on earth could we record and watch our favorite shows? Incredible. It really was. Until someone inadvertently taped over your unwatched episode because they covered the little tab thingy.

Mini cassette players like Walkmans were for the cool kids and better yet a game system! We lived our teenage years with vinyl LPs changing to CDs and we bought a microwave!!! Scrambled eggs in 2 minutes….must be magic or something. I wondered if it was radioactive for the first few weeks I avoided using it and watched from afar. Over-cooking soup and having it boil over seemed more work having to clean the inside of it than putting it into a pot on the stove.

DVD players and cellphones came into my possession and then every home had a computer. The internet took over the world in my eyes.
Everything seemed to shrink in size.

My children now have tiny tv screens in the palm of their hands with no cables , rechargeable batteries and access to the Internet. Movies at the touch of a button. Calculator, encyclopedias, books, a camera , a telephone all in a 4 inch long contraption. Very space age.
Don’t get me started about trying to talk to a teenager with ear buds in constantly.

Snail mail has all but been replaced with a text message ,no more mail dropping on the mat and holding the handwritten words from a loved one in your hand. There are less telephone calls made as a text will suffice. A quick ‘happy birthday’ is written on social media instead of mailing a card. Very little personal effort involved but does it still have the same emotional connection? I don’t think so. And yet, I personally don’t like excessive use of paper and always feel bad throwing away greeting cards I’ve received , even if it does go into the recycle bin.

I do like not having to wait on replies. I’m not a patient person. My irritant is knowing someone has read my text or email because of an electronic time stamp , and does not reply for a week , but still continues to post on Facebook , etc.

My favorite piece of technology is obviously my smartphone and I’ll admit I feel lost without it. I write all my emails, blog, social media, texts and manage my calendars and shopping through it , preferring it over my laptop. Yes , I have one of those too.

I do enjoy my kindle also because I love to read and having access to thousands of books in the size of a small paperback book is mind blowing.

My grandparents are gone now , but I wonder what they would have made of these advances in electronics and wonder would I have seen my granny with an iPad watching her favorite soap operas ,or my grandad looking up his plants on the Internet ? I don’t think so somehow. They were simple folk who weren’t keen on changes.

I wonder what will be next ? Micro processors embedded in our heads ? Hope not, I like my thoughts to be my own, silly as they may be.