Saturday, August 05, 2006

Mid-life Crisis

Most of the times, technology scares me because I feel too old for it. Most children these days start using computers at age three on cool Macs. I, on the other hand, had my first home computer when I was in the third grade. I’m not sure what operating system we had at that time, but my first memories of actually using a computer is with Windows 93. The computer belonged to my mum’s office. I still remember logging off Windows and going on to 'DOS' and typing ‘c-drive’ and playing games such as ‘Prince of Persia’ (yes, the original ‘Prince’. I sucked at it, by the way. It used to terrify me and yet, I insisted playing it.). I could never understand how key boards worked and why all the alphabets were not in alphabetical order or how in the wide world could my mother type so fast. Today, my mother is the slowest typist in the family. It is funny how things turn out to be, isn’t it?

We got Internet at home when I was either in the sixth grade or the seventh grade. At that time, I don’t even think my parents knew what exactly the Internet was. I’m not sure I still know what exactly the Internet is. I remember my mother teaching my the basics of email in seventh grade and opening a hotmail account for me. I never thought that I would even use it. After all, I did not have anyone to write messages to. Then, I was introduced to chain forwards, which I have to shamefully admit that my 13 year old self was addicted to. But my exposure to the Internet did not go beyond email. That was until I was introduced to something called ‘Google’ of course. Suddenly my vision of life had changed. I still hold Google responsible for changing my way of thinking.

Right now, I find that children are introduced to computers much before kindergarten. My three year old cousin, who has not even started school yet, proficiently plays all sorts of ‘educational’ games on her computer, which teach her how to count, learn the alphabet or does puzzles. She has a lot of fun doing them and learns at the same time. I just learnt the alphabet from boring, little school books. When I was little, my idea of fun on a computer was ‘Microsoft Paint’ on which I have spent endless joyful moments. CDs were practically inexistent all through my childhood. All I knew were the big floppies for the A-drive by my parents for work purposes. The little floppies, which are outdated right now seemed like a digital revolution to me.
It’s not just computers, it’s every piece of technology that we presently use seems foreign to my childhood like laptops, ipods, DVD players, DVDs themselves, mobile phones etc. The strangest thing in the world is to see my two year old cousin using the DVD player. He knows how to switch it on, select his DVD and play it. At two, I hardly knew what a remote control for our television was and grew up watching VHSs on our outdated video player.

Since I am the only fruit of my parent’s loins, they but naturally freakishly obsessive about knowing my movements. I got my first mobile phone when I was about fourteen and hated it. All my friends could never understand why I disliked it so much, but I did. It made me attract attention. I didn’t like the attention. I did not have any numbers stored on my phone, and I did not even know about the existence of text messages. There was nobody else of my age group who owned an actual cell phone. I used to get into so many arguments with my parents about carrying it all around. Presently, I’ve been carrying a mobile around for about the last 5 years, I still don’t use it much, (because it is permanently out of money) but I don’t think I could live without it. It just makes me feel safer having a phone around me in case of late night emergencies. Normally, my mobile phone is more useful to me as an alarm clock, rather than an object of communication, but it’s something I still need to have for personal comfort. It feels great to know that all the people I love are just a button away from me.

I feel too old for a lot of things actually. Just the other day TPF had come over to my house for a sleepover and we were supposed to have a movie marathon all night long. The next day my dad asked me which movies we saw all night and I told him that we just went to bed at 11 because we were too tired to do anything else. He then teased me about all the fabulous plans we had made that evening. My reply to that was: “I think I’ve become too old to stay up all night long, dad. When I was 14, it was alright, I used to have all that energy, but right now, I just don’t think I have the capacity to stay up late.”

That’s right, my dear readers I’m almost 19 and am going through a mid-life crisis. I’m too old for this young world that seems to get younger each day and all I can do is sit and collect stories to tell my grandchildren.

7 comments:

The Poodle's Friend said...

I can so relate. I remember using windows 3.1. There was no such thing as a desktop. And the random landscapes I used to draw on paint! Sigh. Those were the days. And I used to get stuck on level 1 of Prince because I was too scared to fight the dude at the end!

Eris said...

i know what you mean about feeling old sometimes. you're just feeling that way coz you finished school. wait till you're in col and a fresher and tell me if you still feel the same way.

niTin said...

This one's going to be a quickie, since I have to search for my flash-drive (with the Google logo). If you think Macs are cool, wait till you check out Linux.
What is most weird is when your younger (read: techno savvy) cousins come to you with problems they encounter, or when the system crashes on them, and you're expected to fix them.

ash said...

Pan, on my blog you claimed that your only games memories were on Super Mario! Prince of Persia though - my opinion of you has just improved :)

I'm not too worried or scared of technology but then I haven't come across freaky tech savvy kids either. I don't think you're allowed to complain until you're at least twenty years older though.

Nikki said...

Try not to take it to hard Pan.

Life just gets more interesting - that's all.

It's a constant learning process - and constantly feeling "out of the loop" LOL

Panacea said...

TPF - I used to be terrified of Prince myself and I hated killing people, I still don't know why I played it all the time.
Ah, I miss the good old days of Microsoft Paint!

Eris - You're proabably right. I should wait till university begins and then I'll be complaing about how young and inexperienced I feel, instead.

Nitin - Oh my god, you're completely right, younger tech savvy cousins always think that you're going all their problems. Although, I must not complain too much about this because we do the same in school with out 50 year old computer teacher *blushes*

Ash - You're completely right, you're going to find me complaining once again about this when I'm 40 and all my kids have gone beyond actual computers.
I forgot to tell you about Prince when I commented on your blog, but I have to admit, I was rather bad at it.

Nikki - I'm sure it's going to get even more interesting when Univesity starts and I can't make up my mind whether I'm looking forward for it to start or completely dreading it.

Meg said...

Wow. Now I feel old. I know what you mean, though.