Technolgy in the past

My grandmother was very sensitive to electricity. If she used the vaccum cleaner she could feel the electricity when she plugged it in. I can remember thinking it so weird to see her sweeping the living room rug when she had a vaccum cleaner. She didn't like to use the phone either. I think becuase she didn't understand how it worked and so it intimidated her.

Technology is a two way street, it helps you just have a better life but in can be overwhelming. There are hundreds of inventions that would have frightened and still frighten people today. I mean everything that comes from electricity would amaze them. Washing machines, vacuums, light bulbs but washing machines also require indoor plumbing which would have fascinated some. The biggest change is the transmission of knowledge, that is what makes things move so quickly. A 100 years ago someone would invent something, it would be shown to local investors, maybe only be used in the inventors house and possibly at a state or world fair and possibly move forward from there. Take television it started development in the early 1900s it was not until the world fair in 1939 that a working set was shown to the world, then in the late 1940s or early 1950s did production start in earnest. There are many people who still remember television as being something amazing and new - Bhutan only started having a local public television in the 1990's - through television, people started seeing how other people thought, what was happening in the world and a young boy looked at a show called Star Trek and saw them using com devices thought that he would create a mobile form of talking and Martin Cooper went on to put that idea into action creating the cellphone. So if you think about it it took 100 years for television to travel the world, that is not very fast. It still seems fast though.

It reminds me of the few Amish communities we have left in our society. They turned their backs on most of the modern conveniences, choosing to not have cares but buggies pulled by a horse or two.. I'm so jealous of that! The whole lifestyle. They build their own furniture, perhaps houses, though I do think some Amish folks have a phone or at least one or two in the community. I believe they heat their homes with wood and, or coal. I would love to live without electricity!!

I,at times, have been overwhelmed by technolgy! It really has grown fast! Like with plasma tv's,cell phones and computers to name a few things! I remember when alot of my friends got computers I couldn't wait to get one but it took longer then I had hope to get one! I was 47 when I got my first cellphone! That was over 2 years ago! Two summers ago I got a small flat screen tv! I have an Ipod! It is crazy! My dad is 87 and I think of all the stuff with technolgy has changed over the years! Not to mention what has happen all over the world since 1924! Two world wars,the evolution of the car,the Korean War,the Vietnam war,15 Presidents ( I think),Man landing on the moon,civil rights,the Great Depression and so many other things! It blows the mind! I can't imagine what my dad has thought over the years and other people! Maybe they felt overwhelm like some of use are today!

Let us take someone from the 1861 and place them in a 2011 movie theater. The movie is in 3D. Can you imagine that person's reaction? 1861 wasn't that long ago. It was only 150 years ago to be exact. So much progress in such a short time! I sympathize with you on this one completely. We are advancing to much in to short a time. We no longer allow ourselves time to get used to changes. We no longer think about the consequences - we just build and release the next generation of whatever. Progress has become a cultural tenet that we just automatically accept as "good." Anyone who does question the rate and effects of progress is labeled a Luddite and dismissed. However that really concerns me. We just keep inventing and advancing because we can. We don't think about the consequences: we just assume every advance and the speed of those advances is good. We assume everything will work out because we have been lucky so far. Just a century and half ago, most people could live self sufficiently because they had the skills to do so (e.g. farming, sewing, etc). Today however we have left those skills (which meant greater security) behind in favor of efficiency. However with that exchange we have made ourselves so much more vulnerable. How many people could realistically survive for an extended period of time if electricity was to be cut of? Everything from communication to nutrition would be basically impossible! As with you, technology is advancing way to fast for me. I can't get over my concern about what the consequences of that rapid advance will be. If I had my way I would freeze everything the way it is now for ten our twenty years -- just to breath and have a chance to catch up ya know?

Hi Anne18 I think all technology was embraced by some, while viewed as a harbinger of doom by others, just as it is today. I can imagine when the telephone was first invented, I'm sure most people saw the convenience in the device, while others saw it as an invasion of privacy. No more would someone need to walk to your home to speak to you, they could simply annoy you with a ring. Perhaps the first hint of the duality of technology happened way before you and I were born. Remember reading in history the debate on if the earth was round or flat? It was technology that allowed scholars and scientists of the day to prove the earth was round and not the center of the universe. Remember what an upheaval that bit of information caused.

Technology is changing so fast that it is very hard to keep up with the changes, but I must admit that my family is doing the best we can to keep up. In December, I am finally going to have my first tablet computer.

We never had to pay for a locker in school, we just had to provide our own lock. What do they do with the money paid for the locker? I've often wondered about technology and school. What is going to be mandatory? What about the kids who won't be able to afford such expensive technology? I am starting to feel OLD, and i'm only 29! LOL

I have met people who were around when cars were first arriving on the scene. One lady I spoke to said that her father had one of the first autos in town and how they'd go for drives in it. I've also worked with a lady who used to work with the aged population when she was younger and she'd tell us about how some of the people she met when she was young would recount how they had been slaves as children. I think those people who are afraid of new technology probably don't survive as well as those who embrace it. I will say that while I like my cell phone, there are some people who probably just shouldn't have ever gotten them and while they are a good thing for emergency calls, I've also wondered how these people would've survived without being able to "yak" all the freaking time in all sorts of public places back in the days when they were not only tied to the house, but to a hardwired phone!

You know, I think it's matters of thought. Clearly, young people see before them the technology always evolve by leaps and bounds. While people a little wiser, maybe not so young, they tend to settle some of which have, without going too much progress. However, I can easily give an example about appliances. Up to 80 or 90 years possibile was thinking of buying a washing machine that lasted 20 years. Today it is unthinkable, we are in the era of consumerism. The society we "require" to spend and if one of our appliance should chance to fail, better to buy new than repair.

do you know, i've thought of this before. i remember the day the first mobile phone came out. and i also remember the first mobile i had when i was 13. a bt cellnet phone lol! .. and it unnerved me how i could talk on this phone, that looked, and felt like, but wasn't the cordless device in my mothers house! in actual fact i can remember the day my mum and dad bought a cordless phone and i was in awe at the fact you could move around whilst talking on the phone. now.. you can listen to music, talk on the phone, play games, all on the move, and all on the SAME THING. i wonder like you, did other people in the fact feel as amazed as us, not only frightened. like when the first telephone was installed in someones home..

Oh wow! I can't even think of anything back in the 50's and 60's. Other than the phone. Computers weren't even popular until my daughter was in middle school. The biggest thing in technology when I was a kid was the translated radio.

Anne I love your conversations they are so good but so many people respond to them. I was surprised at the £25 for the use of a locker. Do you have to buy the dammed thing. The advances in technology have been fantastic for domestic use and in factory production. I can understand your hankering for things of the past, dirty smokey fires, the old cooking range and the copper to boil the washing in. Look back and see what hard work it was to plough a field, to harvest the wheat and to shift the straw. It would have taken all day to do the washing just like it did for my mother who always wanted her washing machine repaired or replaced when it broke. Yes it always looks good to look at the past but I would not want to be without this wonderful laptop I'm using right now.

It is scary right?!! I mean 10 years ago, who would have imagined a touch screen phone or an Ipad? Gosh!!!

Maybe people were not really scared of the inventions. There are a lot of those that were invented that became really helpful. Going back in time, we see that trolleys, and pulleys have been part of the first few machines that were invented and they had helped a great deal back then, right? We had the telephones, yes that is right. We had the morse code... used in sending messages during the war... and well i am sure depending on the message received that sure would be scary or happy. haha Then we had heaters, and air conditioning.. i am sure these are great addition to our lives; I think what's scary would be the invention for war, like weapons that can really destroy people and lives instead of making their lives better... =(

Hubby's Grandfathr didn't believe in airplanes. That is until he found one burning in his cow pasture and rode up on his horse threw a rope over the pilot and pulled him out of the fire. Can't you just see this old cowboy racing up to the burning plane in the middle of a Texas cow field? PS for all his effort he wasn't able to save the pilot. I was always sorry he didn't live long enough to see a man on the moon, but then he likely wouldn't believe that either.

I bet when celphones were a bit frightening when they first came out. Specially for people that had to go travelling as part of their jobs. It meant that they bosses can contact them all the time, anytime which meant a little restriction on the freedom that they enjoyed by being away from their desk. As much as it is a necessity to me right now, I sometimes wish that there are times that celphones couldn't reach me as far as work goes.

Technology makes my life easier and Thanks to technology I can contact with my family any time ( they don't live in UK) and much cheaper than before. I can say that I love technology. Thanks to this we can enjoy myLOt. I agree that its hard to keep up with new gadgets these days.

Since we're on the topic, I remember the beeper/pager era in the 90s. I was so envious with my cousin's pager back then. I can only imagine how stupid that would look now. It's like a one way text messaging but to send a message you have to call an operator.

If someone will come from past to our time, he will be amazed and shocked too. Shocked, cause he will not understand many things of our time. And amazed, cause he will see something new shape of their favourite items like weights, gramophone, boats, and traditions..... But yes living in our time is just easy as anyone can buy a heaven for him only matter is money....... And I really think that even god does not have some of our things......