“Julie,
phone for you!” Announced my mother from the kitchen (30 years ago). “Coming!” I yelled back, scurrying to the
wall-mounted Bell phone with a curly cord that was always getting tied up in
knots. That was how I received a phone
call when I was a kid. Sometime in junior high, they gave me a phone in my room
– a diligently monitored phone, considering I had two sisters who liked to talk
to their friends too.
My how
things have changed. Do we even have a
clue who our kids are talking to? Wait,
I mean, who they are TEXTING? My parents knew who I was communicating with;
there was no way to avoid it. And if a
call lasted too long, well, you can be sure I would hear about it. And when I had a boyfriend in high school, I
remember my father getting so upset that I had “tied up” the line for so long
that he walked into my room and “ripped” the phone out of the wall. Can our kids even comprehend that that was
possible: to rip a phone out of a wall?! What on earth does that mean, they
must be wondering.
You know
you’re old when you start looking back at the “good old days,” reminiscing
about this or that, the way things used to be, how much better some things
were. I can’t believe I’ve reached that
point! I do think that some things were better back then and some things, like
technology, are better now. But with
every advancement, there’s a price to pay.
With email, texting, voicemail, the Internet and other technological
communication methods, we really never have to speak to anyone anymore. At least not that often - or for too
long.
What about
the written note or letter? What about our handwriting? Can anyone recognize
you on the basis of your handwriting? I
doubt it. I wish it were important to
slow down and take a moment to write a note, with a pen and paper, not a
keyboard or a smartphone touchscreen. It’s
all so impersonal and cold and digital.
We are lost in it. The
sensitivity of the human touch is lost on the screen.
But here we
are, and we can only move forward. I
just wish I could sign this blog with my real signature, and not a digitized
replica.
JAK
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