On October 14th, my new iPhone was delivered. Moving up from the iPhone 3G - getting this phone was a huge treat. In fact, with the 3G, I could never totally understand all the iPhone hype. But this 4S is fantastic. Even though I also own an iPad - I use the phone to surf the web and do lots of other things.
But the feature I love the most is Siri. I must admit, we had our problems at first because we didn't always seem to understand each other but now we are good friends. I can be in the middle of something and quickly have her write a reminder for me. She sends emails and text messages for me and even knows my name. How things have changed during my lifetime.
When I was a little girl, we lived in Washington, DC and had no air-conditioning (I am not even sure it was invented back in the 40s). For those of you who have spent a summer in DC, you will understand when I say that area can be worse than miserable at that time of year.
As a result, almost every summer, my mother packed up the kids and would go up to Cazenova, NY to visit my grandparents. My father would take leave and come up for several weeks. The year I was born, they had built a cottage on their property, so we had separate living quarters, which was an ideal situation.
One of my strongest memories of those days was my grandparents picking up their phone and asking the operator to dial a number for them. But they only reached the operator if no one else was using their shared line. And there was no such things as an actual dial feature on any of their phones.
At our house, we had a black rotary phone with a dial that clicked every time the wheel was turned. If I remember correctly, our phone number was something like MA-1212. Area codes were a long way off in the future. My parents had been given a choice of a party or private line - they elected the more expensive route and picked the private one. To call long distance, we had to dial "O" to get an operator to call the number for us.
Calling long distance was expensive - especially for those days. Twenty-five cents a minute wasn't unheard of. So we kept in touch by writing letters - calling long distance was used for such things as emergencies or very special occasions. To put it into context, the mailman also walked from house to house with a big leather pouch on his back - people either had a mail box by their front door or there was a mail slot built in the door.
My parents, who have been deceased for a number of years, would be blown away if they could see the world as it is today. My father, who died in 1987 didn't even know what a PC was. My mother lived until 1998 but during her last years she was so senile she didn't have much of an idea as to what was going on around her.
Now look at us. Little did I dream, even 5 years ago that my phone would call me Ellen. And even funnier, I find I thank her when she helps me out. How crazy is that?
As a senior citizen that has spent over two years studying this crazy online world that we are living it, I have found that it can be fun at times and frustrating beyond belief at others. The young who have grown up in the computer era have no idea of how we can struggle with just trying to understand them. My goal is to help those who are either older or non techies survive because we have to adapt. If you are interested in learning more, please visit my website at http://etsocialmedia.com/.
