Technological Advances...Things to Ponder

We were recently watching a DVD of the TV show "The Practice" from the mid-1990's. It was the prequel to "Boston Legal", which we LOVE! Anyway - the dramatic suspense was building as the attorneys for the big case waited in a bar for the jury to come back with it's verdict...they were on a couple of bar stools having a bite to eat and discussing how the closing arguments had gone...when all of a sudden....their PAGERS went off. That's right, their pagers.

We laughed out loud and quickly quoted one of our other favorite shows, "30 Rock", in which Alec Baldwin's character has the following exchange with Tiny Fey's character:

Liz: Okay, very funny. You bought a pager from Dennis. Will you take it off now, please?
Jack: Oh, I can't. I'm expecting a call from 1983.

It got me thinking about how different things are now than they used to be. I mean, the amount of change in the last 10-15 years is staggering!

And then I thought about it some more...and thought way back to when I was closer to Lexi's age, somewhere during the 1890's...OK, that's an exaggeration, but it was a looooong time ago. Here's some little gems that I waxed nostalgic about:

When I was a kid, I remember going to the grocery store and the clerk actually having to read the price tag off of an item and key it into the register.

Now, everything is computerized and bar coded.

When I was a kid, the microwave was a new invention that my mom went to classes for to learn how to "cook" with it. And it was ginormous.

Now, we had to live without a microwave for a week when ours broke and we almost starved to "def", as Tucker says.

When I was a kid, if you paid for something with a credit card the clerk put it into this contraption and ran some thingy-ma-bopper (technical term) over it to make carbons of the card numbers and other pertinent info.

Now, you just slide your card through the magnetic strip and push in your secret agent code - if that. Sometimes they just run the card and it's a mystery as to what just took place.

When I was a kid, call waiting didn't exist. Busy signals did and were common.

Now, not only do I have call waiting, I also have caller ID. So I can receive calls while I'm on a call AND decide if the person calling is more important to me than the person I am speaking to!! It's a lovely thing...BFF or hubby? BFF or hubby?

When I was a kid, cell phones didn't exist. People actually just drove and listened to their 8-track players. If you broke down, God Forbid, you better have a dime on you to be able to get to a payphone to make a call.

Now, cell phones are not only predominate, but we have convinced ourselves that we can't live without them. To the point of having to wear Borg-like headsets so we can chat and drive - hands free!

When I was a kid, people wrote letters to communicate over long distances. Long distance phone calls were cost prohibitive to many.

Now, email is a key form of communication and getting a personal, snail mail letter is an exciting rarity. I don't even know what 1/2 of my new friends handwriting looks like.

I know I am not unique in making these comparisons. And all of this is just through my generation - it doesn't even scratch the surface of how different things were when my parents were kids (imagine... no TV, barely indoor plumbing, scratching school work onto slate tablets when you left the farm long enough to go to school...OK, that's a stretch - sorry Mom and Dad!) or when my grandparents were kids (no electricity, no running water, dinosaurs roamed the Earth...OK - another exaggeration, but still!)

It made me stop and think - with the advent of all the "communication" technology, email, cell phones, Blogs, etc., has it helped human relationships? Are we able to stay and feel more connected now that we can reach each other so easily?

Or does all of the techno-communication leaving us feeling shortchanged of all the nuances that come with face-to-face human contact? So much of communication is non-verbal...do "emoticons" really make up the difference, or is the new wave of "techno-communication" really "Relationship Lite"?

I am not sure how I feel about all of it yet. It will be interesting to see how things change over the next few decades. When Lexi is blogging, will she ponder the future for her kids too?

Or will I be right there with her, pondering away myself - enabled by the post-cryogenic un-freezing of my noggin', should I pass too soon.

We shall see.