Best Inventions – My Top 3 Picks

#1 The alarm clock is one of the greatest inventions of all time. It has helped me miss class, be late for interviews and overall to procrastinate.

#2 P.V.R! Admittedly, I didn’t know what those letters stood for until recently. Now that I know how to use a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) I can’t imagine living without it. Fast forwarding through commercials was a brilliant idea.

#3 The shower radio is ingenious. I no longer need to find space, on the sink counter for my extra large radio. I don’t need to blast the volume to hear the music anymore. Best of all, now that I can hear the songs clearly and can sing in the shower more effectively. It’s Great!

Growing up, I only had a radio alarm clock; that was “high tech” enough for me.

My Childhood

What happened to children going to the park? Do parks no longer exist? In my neighbourhood, parks are referred to as history. We use to have 5 parks in my neighbourhood and after school they were ALL filled with kids and backpacks would line along the grass. The grass never grew because kids were always running on it and the sand was always dark brown and murky from the mud we brought. Today my neighbourhood has 2 parks. Apparently there isn’t use for them anymore. The grass grows a bright green colour; the sand is almost grey and sparkles under the sunlight. Where have all the children gone?

When I was growing up, we didn’t know how to sit on the couch for long periods of time. When it was summer we were at parks, pools and playing sports. In the winter we had snowball fights, built snow forts and went tobogganing. When it rained we splashed in puddles that ruined our new outfits.

Entering Adulthood

I first bought a phone when I was in grade 12. I thought I was so cool and I was finally engaging with the technological world. When I went to TELUS all they could offer me were devices that I wouldn’t be able to use when I got home. The phones were filled with buttons that did things that were of no use to me. I knew the sales guy could smell fresh meat so I ended up paying $200 more to buy a phone that had LESS features. I know that sounds crazy, but I needed a phone that I could use for talking and texting not so that I could organize the world from a hand held device. I was 18, what more did I really need?

Today’s Children

Today 4 year olds are using Blackberries. I’m not sure what business they have to attend to, but Blackberries are now essential for their growth – I think?  My neighbour’s 4 year old daughter uses a smart phone to search for her favorite songs on YouTube.

When I was 5, if I wanted to hear a song I liked, I…

#1  Sang it

#2  Asked my mother to play it on the piano

And if it was a new song, I would…

 #1 – wait for it to come on the radio

#2 – wait until Friday to watch Tarzan Dan on YTV HitList


 

 

 

 
The Experiences Children are Losing Out On

Just because I grew up in a different generation I don’t think I’m crazy to believe that Blackberries were not designed for toddlers. We once ate Oreo cookies by dunking them in milk. Nowadays kids can’t experience the dunking, they need their hands (at least one hand) to play their video games. They only know how to pop food in their mouth. They are losing out on the experience of eating food.

Somehow the Blackberry and other devices have become more important to children than building snow forts, to keep the enemies from shooting them with snowballs. I didn’t realize that wearing your swimsuit and running through sprinklers in the garden on a hot day could be considered lame, oppose to moving your thumbs as fast as you can to figure out what other people are doing on Facebook.