How do you communicate?

Remember pay phones and landlines?  Weird.  Waiting until you thought someone was home before trying to call or timing it intentionally so you got the machine.  Now when you don't really want to talk to someone right now you text or write on their wall.  There really isn't any need for landlines since cell phones have become so commonplace.  There are inexpensive alternatives so that they are affordable for almost everyone.  The question is do you know how dependent you are on your phone.  Thank god for alternatives such as the ability to make calls through Google for free for when your phone is dead and you lost your charger.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/167424/google_voice_5_reasons_to_use_it_5_reasons_to_think_twice.html

Today there are so many smart phones battles.  The only real one is iPhone vs. Android but Blackberry likes to think they are still in the game.  They recently released a video with djs to promote their phone.  Looks like they conceded the business community.

Remember writing?

No really do you?  Do you remember learning to write in school.  After mastering print you moved onto cursive, the skill that you would undoubtedly use the rest of your life.  This is becoming obsolete.  Most schools only teach cursive in the 3rd grade.  Some schools are doing away with it all together so students can learn "21st Century skills".  Below is a link regarding this topic from the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/us/28cursive.html

Now penmanship is of little to no importance.  Everything is typed and spell checked, so inadequacies in spelling and grammar are no problem!  Typing as a skill itself has even decreased in importance.  How often do you get asked how many words per minute you can type.  Now we continue to move toward dictation over typing.  Siri is the beginning of this for most of us.  We can now dictate questions, instructions and text messages.  Siri will become more advanced as Apple better understands the ways consumers rely on Siri.  Siri doesn't work for third party applications as of now.  But if you love Tweeting and would rather be hands free check out this video.  (Or watch it anyway.)

             

What is this about?

Well, I'm glad you asked.  This blog will focus on the transformations that technology has led to over the years and the changes that we are likely to see in the future.  We often forget the technologies of our past, but by examining them we can see where technology is trending and better understand why certain technologies fall by the wayside and others thrive. 

As technology develops we depend on it more and more.  We give up our privacy and we shorten our attention span.  It has changed our lives in many ways that we notice and others that we don't.  These are some of the things this blog seeks to explore.