What changes in technology have you seen in your lifetime?

When I was a little girl, televisions were black and white and the biggest screen was about 6 inches x 6 inches.  TV shows started at 7 am with shows like Howdee Doodee and ended with the Star Spangled Banner at 10pm and the question - "Do you know where your children are?"  Meaning - every child should be home and safely tucked in bed.  We got our first colored television when we moved to Denver, Colorado in 1966.  Even then, not all of the shows were presented in color.  It would be announced at the beginning of the program if the show was in color.  That is how NBC got that colored fan - which is in truth a peacock.  It used to be proud as a peacock before the 'tail' went Technicolor.  Color was saved for the big budget and top 10 shows.  Soap operas and other shows were much slower to go to color.  It was big deal that one of soaps premiered in color, because then all of them had to switch.

When I was 8 years old, I wanted a transistor radio more than anything.  I got one for my birthday and it was orange.  I hated the earphones so when it wasn't just beside me, I would listen to it under my pillow.  I loved that radio.  I literally used it until it wore out.

When I was 12, I got my first stereo record player.  That too was my pride and joy.  I listened to records every night to go to sleep.  When the last record played it had an automatic cut-off that usually worked.  I had that until Carianne was born, then my brother, Bob wanted it.  We have now gone from records to reel to reel tapes, to 8-track to cassettes to CDs and I-pods.  That is quite a change in really just 40 years!

I remember when I was taking typing in High School on an old fashioned, manual typewriter (the cheapest kind they could find)  - dreaming of day when you could type and automatically correct what you were doing before it hit the written page.  Imagine my delight when we got our first computer and printer - even though it was a dot matrix printer - that my dream had come true.

It is amazing to me how we have gone from huge computers that literally filled rooms to computers that literally fit in our hands.  Technology has made life so much easier as far as genealogy and other Church programs but it has also made it easier to bring negative things into our homes.  Parents have to be more vigilant than ever with the media.  These are truly amazing times.