You Capture - Technology

Recently, my daughter asked me if I was alive before television was invented. I feigned offense but only half-heartedly because I remember asking my mother the same question. OK, so I did point out that, "I'm not that old" with mock indignation. Honestly, it is astounding to consider the advancement of technology in my lifetime. I mean, I made it through school and college leafing through musty Encyclopedias and wading through the old card-file system at the library. And I either wrote--literally--all of my papers or plunk, plunk, plunked them out on a typewriter. And, boy, was I a mean typist!

Being the education lover that I am, I occasionally long for a re-do. Can you imagine doing school with the WHOLE world right there at your fingertips? Perhaps that's why I homeschool, to live a whole other academic life vicariously through my children.

Certainly technology has opened so many possibilities. It does, however, also draw a two-edged sword--the information world is so very vast, it is easy to get lost. And spend A LOT of time getting lost. I have to be very careful I don't spend too much time on the computer. It is so easy to sit down "just to check email" and, an hour later, find myself checking out the very latest in homeschool science curriculum. There are two culprits that suck the time right out of my day when I'm on the computer:

Facebook



and Blog World.

Of course, a close second time waster is the TV, but I make it a policy not to have it on during the day. Trying to teach school whilst catching up on the latest soap is not all that conducive to learning.

20 points if you can guess this show:


Make that 5 points. That was too easy. I was going to hit you with this next photo, but couldn't pass up the frame with Kramer in it.

OK, 20 points if you can guess the episode. Not that you win a prize or anything.

There is one piece of technology that does not distract me: the phone. I have a strong aversion to the phone. I don't know if this is because of my college job as one of those annoying people who interrupts you during your dinner to tell you that you will be receiving a free gift in the mail if you just sign up for something. Or perhaps it's the fact that, even if the children are on the far side of the house when I pick up the phone and dial the number, as soon as the other party picks up, I'm like a magnet. Or maybe I'm just shallow and tire of the small talk that has to take place at the beginning of every phone call.

Whatever the case, if you called my cellphone, you would likely get my voice mail which says something along the lines of, I am not answering because I usually forget to take the cellphone with me. And don't bother to leave a message because I rarely check.

I don't text either. In fact, I'm a texting dork. And of course I have no interest in owning an iPhone or any device of equal caliber. So on the off-chance that I am required to text someone, I still do the ol' 4-4, 3-3, 5-5-5, 5-5-5, 6-6-6. (20 more points if you can figure out what that spells).

So I guess you could say I have a love/hate relationship with technology. But I guess that's probably how most people feel...you love your computer until it crashes or freezes. Then not so much.

For more technologically inspired photos, visit I Should Be Folding Laundry.