Intergenerational Technology Biography

"As a child growing up, my grandfather, John Van Der Ploeg, remembers his earliest piece of technology as the movie projectors that used 16 millimeter film. Other popular gadgets in his home were the alarm clock, portable radio, box cameras, and four party line phones. Unlike today’s telephones, a four party line phone was connected to four different homes. If the line was busy, he could listen on the other person’s conversation and you had to wait until one party was finished before you could use it. If there was an emergency, you simply asked the party to get off the line for a moment."

Interviewing my grandfather about his experiences with technology while growing up was quite interesting. My first reaction to a four party line phone, was "Wow!" I cannot imangine having only one phone line, needless to say sharing it with three other families. Hearing my grandfather and watching his expressions was like one of those "priceless" moments. As I had to think back to my childhood and compare my technology experiences with my grandfather's, they were different in the sense that my technologies were advancements of most of his and I grew up with some different items. Similarly, we share common characteristics in how we learn technology.

Writing up this assignment also let me hear a different perspective of how technology impacts our living today. For my grandfather, technology has been nothing but a positive learning tool in his life. With that, he only mentioned positive social consequences, whereas I tend to lean more towards the negative social consequences first. In all, writing this technology biography about my grandfather has opened my eyes to what life was back in the early 1900's and I was able to learn more about his life.