Where would we be without all the modern technology that is literally at our fingertips? .Computers, mobile phones, the Internet, tablets and a whole host of other gadgets that are designed to make communication easier, are now firmly integrated into the majority of our lives,….

Take mobile phones for example, Many people seldom leave home without it, after all, it is so much more than just a phone…You can listen to music on it, take photos and videos with it, catch up with what your friends are doing, by logging onto social networking sites,(plus do many more things I don’t understand) and and even, at a push actually TALK to someone on it!!

How excited I was when I saw one of the first mobiles. They looked a little ungainly, being the size of a house brick, but what a great idea they seemed to be. Fancy being able to talk to someone when you were in the middle of nowhere! Things quickly progressed and they became more widely available, I remember them as being a bit of a status symbol at first, and although they were not as huge as when they first came out, they were still pretty hefty! For some reason, those lucky enough to have one in the early days,(usually men),  would strut around, showing off their mobiles, which were normally on a clip dangling from a belt loop at the waist (could be a bit dodgy if they hit in the wrong place as they were pretty chunky and heavy)!!

I couldn’t wait to get one it was not always easy or convenient to find a public phone box that either hadn’t been vandalised, or stank of piss (or worse) or that actually worked! It was so frustrating trying to ring someone, especially when I was still school age, only to manage to get through, hear the pips going to put the money in, then for it to bounce back out again, landing on the floor, and by the time you had picked it up, you had been cut off! Reversing the charges to our house was NOT an option, unless it was a dire emergency.

Now of course, things are so different, and although better in many ways, mobiles can be rather annoying (or at least the people using them are)! I can’t bear it when people are listening to music with their headphones on,and all you can hear is this tinny, scratchy noise; also it does seem rather rude when you are trying to talk to someone and they have their head down texting away to someone, or worse yet, receive an ‘important call’ mid conversation with you and then start chatting loudly to the person on the other end, whilst you are left hanging mid sentence, feeling awkward..

Computers also have come a very long way over the years, At first they were pretty basic, but how clever they were, It didn’t matter if you made a mistake typing a letter out, you could edit it before printing, PLUS plug a joystick in, and you have a games console, how amazing was that! Then came something truly spectacular, way beyond the limits of my imagination,,,,THE INTERNET!!

Ooooh the tension waiting  to see whether or not it would actually connect…. the racket it made when the modem dialled up the connection (Dead give away if you were up half the night on it, and you were supposed to be asleep in bed) then the wonder as you finally got online…..wow, all the things you could do. e-mail, I mean can you believe it? You get send a message to someone on the other side of the world and it would arrived almost instantaneously! What was even more outstanding in my opinion was the first time I spoke to my brother and his family who lived in Malaysia and they even had a CAMERA so I could see them as well! My Mum was beyond disbelief when she saw them all in the little box that came up. No matter that it kept freezing or disconnecting, it was almost like magic to her!

Yes technology is fantastic. It enables us to stay connected to each other in so many ways. We don’t even have to talk to anyone if we don’t want to..a text or e-mail, or perhaps instant message will do the job! We have all got loads of ‘friends’ on various social networking sites, and people have even formed lasting relationships that started off online. We don’t even have to go shopping either if we don’t feel like it! Most supermarkets deliver groceries, and nearly everything else can be ordered online and posted out to you.

There is a lot to be said for technology..it certainly can make our busy lives so much easier in many ways….but, the pleasure of opening a hand-written letter, (trying to decipher the shaky handwriting), on fancy writing paper, or those little notelets, is now becoming lost to text and e-mail. Instead of ‘Thank you’ notes or phone calls for gifts that were sent, there is now usually a text, which, is fine, although a little less personal.

I do love all my gadgets, and they have certainly made my life easier in many ways…. I do miss those old red phone boxes though!!!!