My parents are from the baby boomer generation, so they were born a pretty long time ago. Their life as teenagers was completely different than mine. My mom grew up in Toronto / New York City and my dad grew up in South Africa. They were both very busy teenagers - they were always doing something. My mom's main interests were dancing and diving. She took dance lessons four to five times a week for hours at a time. She also participated in swimming and diving competitions. My dad had a ton of hobbies as well. He had his own dark room where he processed negatives, he started his own music entertainment business, he played soccer, and he worked at a camera shop (he sold more camera equipment than the older employees). If my parents weren’t doing extra-curricular activities, they were studying or helping their parents with chores around the house. There was rarely a time when they would get to “chill out”.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed already, but my parents participated in a lot of activities that did not involve advanced technology. A huge part of society today, technology, was not around back then. Sure they had the TV, the radio, the camera, and the phone but that was about it. If my parents wanted to contact a friend or a family member, they would have to pick up the phone, twist for the right numbers and actually talk to him/her. Sometimes they would even have to walk to their friend’s house and talk face to face, the horror! The worst was when they had to take out a piece of paper and write a letter. Now we can text, Facebook, or Tweet someone if we want to contact them. We can have immediate contact with almost any person in the entire world. When my parents were teenagers, communication was not so “instant” as it is today. Another difference between my parents’ childhood and mine was that information was not electronically accessed. If they had to write a book report, they couldn’t just go online and research, they would have to go the library and take notes with a pen or pencil. If you gave a 21st century teenager the task of writing a report without any technology, they would find it very difficult. A survey showed that on average students spend one to two hours on social networking sites daily. My parents didn't even know what Facebook was three years ago, let alone when they were teenagers. Our lifestyles today are filled by technology, my parents’ lifestyles were not.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed already, but my parents participated in a lot of activities that did not involve advanced technology. A huge part of society today, technology, was not around back then. Sure they had the TV, the radio, the camera, and the phone but that was about it. If my parents wanted to contact a friend or a family member, they would have to pick up the phone, twist for the right numbers and actually talk to him/her. Sometimes they would even have to walk to their friend’s house and talk face to face, the horror! The worst was when they had to take out a piece of paper and write a letter. Now we can text, Facebook, or Tweet someone if we want to contact them. We can have immediate contact with almost any person in the entire world. When my parents were teenagers, communication was not so “instant” as it is today. Another difference between my parents’ childhood and mine was that information was not electronically accessed. If they had to write a book report, they couldn’t just go online and research, they would have to go the library and take notes with a pen or pencil. If you gave a 21st century teenager the task of writing a report without any technology, they would find it very difficult. A survey showed that on average students spend one to two hours on social networking sites daily. My parents didn't even know what Facebook was three years ago, let alone when they were teenagers. Our lifestyles today are filled by technology, my parents’ lifestyles were not.
If I got the chance to live in the age of my parents for one day I would be thrilled. To see how my parents grew up and to meet all of my older relatives would be amazing. Seeing how teenagers could function without technology would be so interesting and liberating. I could definitely handle one day without my phone, my iPod, or my computer just for this experience. Even though I wouldn’t mind visiting my parents’ childhood for one day, I would not want to live there. I prefer to live in today’s society – a society thriving on technology. Technology allows for basic tasks and even complicated tasks to be done within an instant. Sure technology has its downfalls: the same survey showed that technology hinders spelling skills, implicitly encourages plagiarism, and disrupts classroom learning. However, if had to live in the past, where there was little technology, I would be devastated.
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