Those Darn Kids and Their Contraptions
I can remember we first got a computer and the internet in my house when I was about 9 or 10. I remember this because I was so excited about having an email address! I even use that email today, but usually just for online shopping purposes. I don’t want my NC Stat
e email to get bombarded with emails that don’t pertain to my schooling. Since we now had a computer, I would use Christmas and birthday money to buy computer games. My favorite out of all the games was “PetVet.” You were a Veterinarian and you had your own practice. You would get to diagnose and treat the animals that came into your clinic and if you bought a van you could even travel out to clients and take care of their pets. You would have to buy medicine and you could take classes so that you could work on animals other than dogs and cats. This included birds, horses, and rodents. As
you extended your practice, you could house the pets overnight if they needed special care. I remember spending countless hours playing PetVet. After I had finished my homework, my mom would let me get on the computer and play my game and I absolutely loved it! I think I really liked the game because my grandfather and uncle were both Veterinarians and their practice was right beside my house. I always loved animals and I looked up to both of them so it was fun to pretend to be a Vet. Two other games that I loved playing on the computer were Minesweeper and Solitaire. Both of these games came already programmed onto the computer. I remember how I used to always play those games at my dad’s work when I was bored. I could never beat Minesweeper though, and even today I don’t think I could beat it!
Growing up, my brother and I only ever had one gaming console. It was the GameCube and we still have it back home and will occasionally play it. My favorite game to play on it was “Super Smash Brothers.” In this game you would pick a character and then fight your opponents. I would always pick to be Zelda and my brother would always be Link. The only other gaming device I had
was a pink Gameboy Advance. My favorite game for my Advance was my “That’s So Raven” game. You would go through trying to earn points and find pieces of your vision. I would even call my Gameboy a Gamegirl, for obvious reasons. Other than those two gaming devices and our computer, my brother and I were never really into gaming. I know a lot of boys his age really loved video games, but my brother would want to play football, basketball, or soccer outside instead. Since he was older, I would want to do everything he did so I would go outside and play him in all of those sports (losing most of the time).
I received my first cell phone for my 13th birthday. I was finally a teenager and my parents also felt I needed one so that I could contact them. I had to stay after school for volleyball practice so my mom and dad wanted to make sure they could get in touch with me if they needed to or vice versa. I had a simple slide phone that had a few buttons on the front and a keyboard when I slid it open. This phone was even touch screen, which I thought was pretty high tech back then! After having this phone for a while, it started to glitch up and would flip the screen upside down. I would have
to turn it off and then back on to get it to change back. I had to get a new one of those phones 3 times. After the 3rd phone didn’t work anymore, I upgraded to a new slide phone where the entire screen was a touch screen on the front and it had a keyboard when I would slide it up. This one worked well for a long time and I liked it. I had this phone up until my junior year of high school. At this point most of my friends had either iPhones or Androids. It was finally my turn for an upgrade on our plan at Verizon so I got the iPhone 5c.
I currently have this phone and it works well for me. Since most phones are smartphones now, it has caused people to become more attached to them. Whether you’re checking Instagram or tweeting, people are always on their phones trying to stay up to date with their followers. I’m even guilty of this, especially when I’m bored and have nothing to do. I’ll continuously refresh my feeds to see if anything new is up, even though I know
there isn’t going to be anything new from the last time I refreshed the page 2 minutes ago. It’s a bad habit, but I think it’s a habit that many people in my generation have. I think our generation is seen as people who don’t know how to socially communicate unless it’s online. I don’t fully agree with this though. I think some people have a hard time talking face-to-face, but most of us have social skills. Although, one thing I don’t like to see is when people are out to dinner and they’re all on their phones. This doesn’t just occur with my generation either. I see parents on their phones and their kids playing with iPads while they’re out eating. Seeing this makes me sad because obviously whatever is on our phones is more important than the people around us. My parents made it a rule that we weren’t allowed to have our phones out while eating dinner. This was a time for us t
o talk about our day and spend time with each other without any distractions. When I go home for breaks and have dinner with my family I never even think about my phone. We’re too busy catching up, laughing, and spending time together to worry about our phones. I’m very grateful my parents made that a rule in our house because it has taught me how to have genuine social interactions. I make an effort to leave my phone in my purse when I’m out with friends eating and I like having them do the same. I enjoy talking with people at dinner rather than sitting on our phones in silence.
I think technology will play a large part in my life in 20 years because it plays a large part now. Everything with school is somewhat digitalized. All of my classes use websites for homework, textbooks, and grading. These include WebAssign and Moodle. There is so much technology used today that I think there will be even more in the future.
