Technology has greatly evolved before my very eyes since I was a kid. And with that evolution came a great change in society. I remember when I was a kid, a really little kid, TVs weren't flat, video tapes and VCRs were the only way to watch shows and movies at home on your own time, and the only phones in my life had to be plugged into the wall by wire. That all changed over time.
Back when I was a kid, TV was my main obsession. I used to watch it quite a bit. Of course, it was always annoying having to scour the guide for something to watch when there's nothing good on. Back then, like I said earlier, TVs weren't flat. They were huge boxes with screens made of actual glass that give you a frizzy feeling against your skin when you touch it. But as I got older, so did the TV. And eventually, it had to go. By the time that happened, no major store sold that kind of box TV anymore and instead, there were only flatscreens. Gonna be honest, it was a happy change for me.
With the change from box-shaped TV to flatscreen TV, there was also, of course, a change in cable. We were a cable TV family when I was a kid. Although we knew about digital cable, that required paying extra money so we never got it. At least not until cable TV was completely replaced by digital. It was an interesting coincidence that when we replaced our television, our apartment building, among others, got a contract with a cable provider to get every unit into digital.
But the above, of course, aren't the only things to change in my household over the years.
Before the age of streaming, there was the age of VCRs. So that we could watch the movies or TV shows we like whenever we like, we had to either buy or rent video tapes. Video tapes are also what we use to record, well, videos. And the only way to play these video tapes was with a VCR, which my household, of course had. With it, I used to watch episodes of my cartoon shows that I missed because of scheduling, as well as movies like the first Harry Potter movie.
Eventually, video tapes phased out of existence. My parents decided to replace our VCR with a DVD player. And whenever we wanted to watch a movie without all those annoying commercial breaks, we bought DVDs instead of video tapes. DVDs, by the way, are basically like CD discs, but they're used to store videos and movies instead of music. It was definitely an improvement. Video tapes often come with those weird glitches like the occasional flash of static, but DVDs definitely didn't have that problem.
Then the age of streaming began, and I was no longer glued to the TV. Instead, I was glued to the computer and the internet. Instead of having to wait for something good to show up, I could just Google it, pull up the website and hit the play button. No longer did we buy video tapes or DVDs, or even CDs to listen to music when everything is available on the internet.
But while we were all transitioning from cable TV to digital TV, and finally over to streaming, there was another transition taking place, another evolution. It was the evolution of the phone. When I was young, the only kind of phone we had was the landline phone. Everything was connected to a wire. But then we got wireless set phones. These phones could be carried around anywhere, as long as it's within the house near enough to the phone's charging station to receive a signal from the landline. That all changed towards the end of my time as an elementary schooler when the cellphone entered my life.
Thinking back, I remember watching a short cartoon about a guy going absolutely nuts over his new cellphone. He couldn't help but show it off. At that time, however, the only thing you could do with a cellphone is make phone calls. That and send text messages. Maybe play a simple game like chess. It was the only game I found worthwhile on my father's flip phone when I was a kid. As time went on, however, more features began to be added to the cellphone.
From some simple means of communicating wherever, whenever, the cellphone became a camera for capturing memories. It became a voice recorder which could be used to capture speeches and surrounding sounds. And then it became a music player which we could download songs into and playback whenever we felt like it. I never used those features much, however. For the most part, the cellphone was just a way of calling my parents to let them know when I was ready to go home.
And then came the smartphone, a gateway to the internet wherever, whenever and you don't even need WiFi. It is essentially a full-blown computer you can fit in your pocket. No longer did I need to spend time idle with nothing to do, bored out of my mind when I have not even a book to read. I can keep myself occupied while waiting in long lines at the bank, or stuck in the waiting room of the doctor's office in my lonesome, surfing the net, playing all kinds of video games, watching all sorts of videos, stream all sorts of movies. It is now possible to be connected to the internet for our entire waking lives.
But the evolution of technology does not stop there. In addition to smartphones, we now have smartwatches with just as much of the same functions. Gadget watches are no longer a thing of fantasy. Neither are gadget glasses, which are currently capable of recording videos, taking pictures, playing music. Self-driving cars are also a thing now. There's not a lot out there right now, but I'm sure in due time, we'll be seeing self-driving cars everywhere. I haven't gotten into any of those myself, and I'm not sure I ever will.
That said, there's no telling what the future holds. Many things once only seen in fiction have become reality, and many more will certainly become reality in the years to come. They can be fascinating and wonderful, or abominable and horrible depending on what they're created and used for. I'll be having my fingers crossed for the former.
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