Tag: connect with family

I told my kids one day, that I was older than Google. They didn’t believe me at first. At least until they googled when did google come to be, and they realized I was telling the truth. Then, of course they asked whether I was older than computers. I said no, but they weren’t then what they are now. I told them they were glorified typewriters. They asked what a typewriter was…. My goodness. I look back on my life and think how much has changed just in my lifetime. When my husband and I got married he had a brick for a cell phone, that we never used because it cost almost $1 per minute to use. It was just for emergencies. Now everyone has a cell phone, and I don’t know about you, but if I forget mine when I leave the house, I go back and get it.

Everything seems to be connected to some sort of technology as well. You don’t need to put your car keys in the ignition, just have them in the car somewhere. You can talk to your phone like it’s a person, ask it questions, and it pulls up possible answers for you. Need the heat turned up in your house, that’s connected too! You can turn the heat up on the way out the door from work, or half way around the world, it doesn’t matter where you’re at. A friend at Church was checking her phone on the way out the door to go home, and told me her roast was done cooking. I guess the cooking thermometer can hook up to your phone too. I would not be at all surprised if she could turn the oven off from her phone when it was done as well.

Technology is great until it starts to malfunction. I don’t know how many times I have sat in Church when someone was there with frantically written notes, trying to give a talk because either their computer crashed just as they finished, or the printer wouldn’t work when they were done and ready to print it out. My kids laugh at me as I mess up my phone or really nice camera I use to digitize my art and I have to call my oldest daughter who does photography to have her walk me through the settings to fix it. But, even with all the malfunctions there are, technology really does make our lives a lot easier and more convenient.

But lately I have really loved one particular aspect of technology. My oldest daughter is on a mission for my Church, and my second daughter is at a remote hunting lodge working for the summer. Missionaries used to only be able to write emails and send mail through the post office, as well as call home only 2 times a year. But with the advent of technology, we now get to talk to our daughter 2 times a week by video call! Now, I have heard pros and cons to this new feature of missions, but for me, it’s way easier to see how my daughter is doing when I can physically see her with my eyes, and hear her, and see her body language, etc. I love talking to her and I am so grateful for the technology to be able to do so.

My second daughter has been at home for over a year, doing college classes and finishing up high school, but home a lot because of the online aspect of most classes due to Covid. She graduated from high school this spring and she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. This job happened along one Sunday afternoon and by Monday evening she was gone. It was a crazy fast transition, but the advent of technology has made a huge difference. It’s amazing how they can be out in the middle of nowhere and still be able to access the internet and the many function, including the messaging and video chats that happen all the time. Again, seeing is way better than an email or phone call, and I am so grateful that any time during the day I can talk to her (usually during the day it’s messaging as she is working), she can talk to me, and that we do get opportunity to connect through the video on a regular basis.

I look back just in my lifetime at all the Technological advances, just in my lifetime, and then looking back at the last 100 years, it’s amazing! I wonder sometimes what will come next. I am waiting for the day that I can beam myself to where my kids are for the afternoon, and then come home in time to fix dinner! What kind of technology do you appreciate? What kind of new technology do you want to see in the future?