Assignment 2- Thomas Ueland

How would your life have been different if you'd grown up 20 years earlier? How would you interact with others? Do you think your relationships then would differ from your present relationships? Which time period would you prefer and why?

If I had grown up 20 years ago, there would have been no Internet, no flat screens, no video games, etc. The technological advancements that occurred in the past few decades changed the way kids grow up. For example, my parents grew up playing with erector sets and games like kick the can. But my cousin, 5 years old, spends most his free time on his mom’s I-pad playing angry birds and rocket ship games. This difference extends to more than our childhood; technology has transformed the way we interact with other people. There is not as much face-to-face communication nowadays as there used to be because we can simply go online to talk to someone. My grandparents and many others that grew up in that generation think negatively of the Internet for this very reason, that it eliminates many face-to-face encounters. While I don’t necessarily agree with their opinion, I do agree that it has changed our relationships. I probably do most of my communicating through text messages or social media, things that wouldn’t be available if I grew up 20 years ago.

Personally, I can’t even imagine having to live with no TV when you get home, with no Internet to look up that movie title that’s on the tip of your tongue. Therefore, I would obviously prefer to live in the society now compared to 20 years ago because of convenience; we can touch a screen a few times and become an an expert on virtually any topic.