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Do you ever find yourself inadvertently taking a few seconds to take a trip down memory lane? I found myself in that situation Saturday as I thought back to something that happened almost a decade ago to the night.
I helped chaperone my school’s junior-senior prom Saturday evening. As the students were walking into the Grand Wayne Center in Fort Wayne clad in tuxedos and formal dresses, it suddenly hit me that 10 years to the month had passed since I had been to my senior prom. Had it really been a decade since my classmates and I were last together?
While the last 10 years have flown by, it wasn’t the fact that 3,650 days had passed that left me in a cloud of thought for a few moments. Instead, I found myself thinking about all that has changed in the last 10 years.
As I watched the students walk in, several were either texting or talking on their cell phones. It’s rare to meet someone today, especially a teenager, who does not have a cell phone. It’s even more uncommon to see a young person who doesn’t use his cell phone for texting and taking pictures.
But just 10 years ago, in 1999, just the opposite was true. Yes, cell phones did exist, but they were few and far between, and the majority of teenagers did not have one. Who would have ever thought that just 10 years later Indiana would have to pass a law to prohibit teens from using their cell phones while behind the wheel?
I remember when my dad bought the first one for our family right before we made a trip to Florida in 1997. It probably weighted five times as much or more than today’s cell phones; it had a long antenna; and it was bulky and not easy to carry around. I think we used it once or twice on the drive to Florida to check in with my grandparents, as it was still expensive in those days. The free weekend and night time plans did not exist, and I had never heard of the phrase free mobile to mobile in-network calls.
I didn’t even get my first cell phone until I was a junior or senior in college, in 2002 or 2003. Even then, it seems the majority of people still did not have one. Fast forward to 2009. I cannot think of anyone I know who does not have a cell phone. In fact, some 20 percent of U.S. households had only cell phones during the last half of 2008, myself included. Several of my friends fit into this category, too.
With the cell phone boom has come a new vocabulary. Ten years ago, words and phrases such as texting, iPhone, Blackberry, in-network mobile to mobile, and ringtones would have been as foreign to me as Farsi. Today, rarely a day passes when you don’t hear those words in advertisements or normal conversations. And, we can’t forget that a new language has emerged as a result of texting. OMG [oh my gosh], LOL [laugh out loud], TTUL [talk to you later], CU [see you later] and a plethora of other abbreviations have spurred a new vocabulary that is still foreign to most of us.
But it’s not just the cell phones that caused me to think of so much change during the past 10 years. I think the technological advancement that has most affected my life in the last decade is the Internet. I’m sure many would agree.
Back in 1999, we did have computers and the Internet was around, but its popularity was still new and I knew of very few people who had a PC at home with Internet access. Those were the days of dial-up access with a modem. I remember how happy I was when we got our first 56K modem.
Had I heard the word MySpace in 1999, I would have thought someone was literally in my space; Facebook to me would have meant a book on your face or a book about your face; Twitter would have only meant someone or something that was chirping or chattering; I would have had to go to a dictionary if someone dropped the noun or verb Google in a sentence; and I probably would have thought a blog was something like a blob. These words today are everywhere.
And then there is the iPod. What more can I say?
Technology has altered our lives in so many ways during the last 10 years, but, despite what many critics say, I don’t think these changes have been all bad. The world has changed, as has our society, but what kids need or want today is not that much different from 10 years ago. Technology will never change these needs.
Kids still need parents who are home with them in the evenings; they still need adult role models in their lives to steer them in the right direction; they still need and deserve a good education. Our legislators and the governor need to remember these needs as they decide how to fund K-12 schools by the end of next month. The almighty dollar shouldn’t dictate every decision; instead, common sense and doing what is right should prevail.
It will be interesting to revisit this topic 10 years from today to see how much technology has changed the world in which we live from May 2009 to May 2019. That’s a column I look forward to writing.
by JUSTIN PEEPER
jdpeeper2@hotmail.com
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