kennedyao-blog

[kennedyao-blog]

My technological imperative

It’s 2006, I’m sitting in a computer lab watching a caterpillar jump from one letter to another, the teacher comes over and places a piece of white poster board over my hands. I’ve been cheating, I was looking at my fingers while also trying to match the letters to the caterpillar. It’s computer class and our grade are based off whether or not we can keep our fingers on the “home keys.” I’m home now, it’s time to feed my Neopet, my dad’s on the phone though, I hope my Neopet hasn’t died yet. I finally got online, my AIM pops up, my friends are online—we discuss how terrible computer class is; my Neopet is fed, time to fix my Myspace page. Its 2006 and my generation is great at coding HTMLs because Myspace is what’s important to us all. Its 2009, Facebook is all the rage, thank god I don’t have to spend hours coding and we no longer have dial up, I have a flip phone and have just gotten unlimited texting, we no longer type words out, now it’s only “brb, g2g, ttyl.” It’s all about PowerPoint, until about 2011 when I discovered Prezi, now we can make things zoom out and zoom in and whoosh through without having to click a bunch of buttons in PowerPoint. Its 2012 and I get my first laptop, it’s a refurbished Dell laptop, it runs out of storage so now I need a portable hard drive to keep room. Its 2013 and my laptop dies, I get a brand new one that has the capability of a split screen. It’s 2017 and I finally get a MacBook Pro, I have no idea what to do on this thing, I didn’t even know what to do on my Dell, I’ve spent a year just clicking around on my Mac trying to figure out what the buttons feel do. My email addresses have gone from aim emails, to a comcast, to a google and now an Akron one; from dancergrl@aim.comto punkgirl@comcast.netto kaocows@comcast.netto now kennedyano7and kao34. I still am trying to learn what the excess buttons are at the bottom of the emails—I barely know how to send an attachment let alone full-blown pictures in the email.

Its 2006, we’re goofing off in computer class trying to draw pictures via the computer, the mouse doesn’t move in a circle. Its 2009, and now you just click a square to color its in. Its 2012 there are apps for everything, now you can just download a coloring app. Its 2019 and now coloring books are back, except there created for cuss words and jokes now. I don’t understand how apps work at all— like the “notes” section on your phone, I still don’t understand how that works. What buttons are you supposed to click when you want to create a new note/send a new note/save a new note. Now I’m just trying to figure out how to use MacBook Pro to just do my regular everyday work.

           I tried to use Arbonne to make some extra something on the side with a new kid, but that needs so much technology I have no clue what I got into—none of it makes sense. Now I need to create something to house all my projects for this class? How am I supposed to do that? Aren’t millennials supposed to be able to do anything and everything technology related, am I even a millennial? I stopped trying to use Instagram to advocate for Arbonne, how does Instagram even work?

           Its 2019, it’s all about Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and I have no idea how anything actually works. What is technology, there’s so many issues with WIFI I’d rather go back to dial up, at least then I knew the reason it wasn’t working was because someone picked up the phone and tried to make a phone call. All that mumbo-jumbo about WIFI not working because their working on lines or the cable needs to be restarted, it’s just too much. I’m about to be 25 years old and I still don’t understand how Microsoft Word even works.

           Its 2006 and I just learned how to change the color on my away message for AIM, it’s all set up so that when someone messages me they get my message. Its 2009 and I’m just learning how to setup Facebook. Its 2013 and I just discovered how to add people from my new dorm room onto my Facebook. Its 2019 and apparently you can change the color of your twitter page from light to dark, change your MacBook from light to dark. I even learned how to get my WIFI setup nicely. Its 2019 and I’m still trying to get used to Brightspace, Springboard was a lot easier to use than Brightspace. Why does everything have to be so complicated.

           Its 2006 and you’ve never heard of buying things online. Its 2009 and online Amazon shopping is popular. Its 2012 and I just purchased majority of my dorm room things online. I just signed up for Amazon Prime. Everything came within two days, this is amazing—you used to have to wait for weeks for your items and at that point you completely forgot what you bought. Its 2019 and now I can have everything the next day, or even pick the day I want to have things sent to me. Online shopping makes more sense to me than setting up a website—I can even program Amazon to one-click where I don’t have to use any information and can just click a button.

           Its 2006 and my mini iPod shuffle has music from LimeWire on it. I don’t know what song is going to appear because it doesn’t have a screen but it’s still pretty cool. Its 2009 and I have a flip phone, my iPod shuffle and my Walkman! Its 2012 and I have a sliding keyboard phone with an iPod that has a screen! LimeWire isn’t a “thing”anymore—good because half the music I downloaded wasn’t even what I really wanted. I continue to ask for iPod gift cards for every occasion possible, iTunes is expensive. Its 2019 and I have Apple Music, for $10.99 a month I get unlimited anything and everything. I don’t even need to download things anymore, that saves me so much time/effort.

           Its 2006 and technology is basically nonexistent. Its 2009 and Apple is becoming a thing. Its 2012/2013 and now I just have to worry about the University of Akron’s WIFI actually working [it never really worked in the dorms]. Its 2019 and now I can just go up to people at a desk and ask them to help me with my WIFI because it doesn’t work, it’s as simple as just deleting the old WIFI setting and setting it up all over again. We have autosave and an iCloud.

           Its 2006 and I just need a floppy disk to save my work. Its 2009 and we’ve gone from a floppy disk to USB drive, now you just have to make sure your computer is compatible to your USB drive. Its 2013 and I have an external hard drive plugged into my refurbished Dell laptop. Its 2019 and now everything is saved to a “cloud.” Which reminds me of the movie where the people accidentally send the contents of their “cloud” to their whole contact list—is that the danger we face nowadays?

           Its 2006 and you cannot text until after 9pm. Its 2009 and my parents are having me use a pay-as-you-go flip phone in order for me to pay for my own minutes, I just want to be able to text people. Its 2010 and my Samsung flip keyboard doesn’t work. Its 2013 and I have my first iPhone, I’m never going back to Samsung. Its 2015 and I crack my screen, I call my mom crying. Its 2019 and I have to set up AutoPay for my new phone bill service. It asks for the twelfth day of the month, but it’ll be taken out on the fifteenth, I don’t understand how that works. I’m so confused, nothing makes sense. My boyfriend’s father does everything electronically, I still send a check in the mail when it’s time to pay my car.

           Its 2006 and I spend majority of my money on buying DVDs and a portable DVD player for myself. Its 2009 and I illegally downloaded movies off the internet. Its 2013 and my TV has a DVD player in it. Its 2019 and now there’s Netflix, which I’m still learning how to use. I miss Blockbuster. I miss VHS’s, I still don’t know what feeling is worse—a broken VHS tape or scratched up DVD Player, either way I cry when one of them happens.

           Its 2019 and I don’t understand how anything works anymore. Between PowerPoint, iMovie, Microsoft Word, and even Amazon either way when did everything get so difficult? I will be 25 this year, my son is almost four months old, technology makes no sense to me. I can barely figure out the control remote for our TV. Its 2019 and Disney is coming out with a new service with access to movies. Am I still old school for wanting to buy DVDs? Sometimes, when dealing with today’s technology, I ask myself am I 24 or am I 48?