While sometime television commercials can be annoying, they do provide us with insights into our culture and way of life. One example is the series promoting ATT U-verse. The commercials feature kids reflecting on the "easy lifestyle" of their younger siblings. When reflecting on the ability to move the television around without a connection, they remark, "Kids have it easy these days." I see it as a comment on both how quickly our world is changing and how blessed we are to live at this time. We don't have a remote TV, but we do have a satellite dish that provides over a hundred channels, most in high definition. Not only is television different, but millennials are the first generation to grow up not knowing what life is like without a computer. We can also point to the fact that teens, and those younger, are the first to live in a world where they don't know about life before cell phones.
As I reflect on how much I rely on my mobile device, I too find myself thinking; "How did I survive in the old world?" I use my cell phone to: keep my personal calendar, check my e-mail, take notes, read the Bible, play games, take pictures, surf the Internet, and yes I make phone calls on it too. I get constant updates on news, sport scores and use it as a GPS. I can read books, watch videos and shop using my mobile device. Oh: and it has a piano and drum app and also a flashlight I can use to find my way in the dark. Amazing, my first computer was a hundred times bigger and didn't have any of those functions. Come to think of it: it had no memory. Everything was stored on floppy disks.
I personally have no desire to go back to the way things were. I enjoy the convenience of today's technology. My hope is that all of us who can still remember the "good old days" will learn to embrace change rather than resist or complain about it. That might mean learning to love those folks who walk around looking at their mobile devices or who have those buds sticking in their ears. One of those folks might be me.
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