Then & Now - Blog #2

For blog post two I chose to interview my father. My dad is 57 years old and has not only lived through different technological advances, but has seen the differences in multiple countries. My father is from a military family so he has lived all over the United States, as well as Okinawa, Japan. 

(All the way to the right, with the beard)

He always talks about how much technology has changed since he was a kid. The Internet is a big topic for him. When he was going through college he had to use a typewriter for some of his papers, or a desktop the size of a TV. He said he used a laptop to write a paper once and he accidentally closed the screen too hard and lost all of his work. Another is the news and television, while my dad grew up in a time where they had TV it was not like we do now. He says when he was a kid there were only about five channels, if that, and the programs would shut off after a certain time of night. He also talked about the antennas that were used for cable television. Since he was the youngest he was the one who would have to get up to adjust the antennas or the tin foil on top of them if the picture was fuzzy. All of the channels and streaming outlets we have now are crazy to him, while he loves them he never imagined we would have this type of capability. Especially with the development of instantaneous news. Major news platforms can release information at all times of the day whether it be on television or the internet.

He still retains his old school ways and likes to buy DVDs, but he loves his blu-ray player so he can see everything in high definition.

Cell Phones were something else he talked about, he grew up with a wall phone or landline, and some people did not even have that. In order to ask someone out on a date you had to call their house and hope someone answered, that was not their parents. He has seen cell phones go from cinder block size to now where they fit into the palm of your hand. You can now leave voicemails or just send a text if they don’t answer. He also raves about video games on phones. 

My dad is a super nerd when it comes to video games, he grew up playing on consoles that had to be attached to a television and they were all individually their own. Not games like grand theft auto, but racing games and one-on-one fighting games. Once game consoles that could be used for multiple games were created, he could go crazy. Now, he owns an Xbox One and does not even have to buy game CDs anymore. You can just order them in the online store and they are in your library forever. He grew up on games like frogger and they all were super pixelated. He is constantly blown away by all the animations and technology that allows them to keep pushing the limits of possibilities.

While he still does not use social media as much as we do, he still appreciates the strides that technology has made. He is a little weary, as many of our parents are, of the invasion of privacy. He is a full-time teacher and a part-time party DJ so he has been able to see and appreciate all of the advancements of the music and streaming industry. From what he told me, it seems that because he grew up in a time where they did not have the same technology and he has been able to watch it develop he is able to appreciate it a little bit more than we have, but he still has a hard time learning the “etiquettes” that we talk about in class on his own. The thing I found most interesting was that the most shocking thing for him to realize is the different shapes of technology devices. He said the “smarter” they get, the smaller they get and it's confusing to him.