Immersion in technology
..., the typewriter has some distinct disadvantages when pitted against a computer equipped with a word processor. The typewriter that I grew up using was not modern by any means. It used old-school ink tape, and it did not have any kind of correction capability. If I made a mistake I would have to go back and fix it using white-out and a pen. Finally, after a few painstaking years using the typewriter my parents broke down and bought our first computer around 1998.. It was equipped with a 28.8 kb/s modem and the almighty word processor. It took a little while to get used to the ease of using the keyboard, but eventually I developed good keyboarding technique. I thought that this new piece of equipment was a Godsend, but in all actuality, it only allowed me to do even more work than before. Then came the behemoth of information: the internet. It took another year or so for my parents to connect our household to the internet, but when they did, I was thrilled. The internet was literally the world at my fingertips. Now I was equal to the other kids that I grew up with. For a long time, I was still looking up information in dusty encyclopedias while my friends were zipping through research using the internet. The internet then was pretty amazing, but now as more sources connect their information to the world-wide-web, the information seems endless. However, even the internet has disadvantages such as an infinite amount of pop-ups and the threat of spam and computer viruses. Finally, the single most important personal communication innovation arrived: the digital wireless phone. Everyone seems to be involved in this rapidly growing technology market. Kids as young as nine or ten have their wireless phones close at hand, and they are not just for talking to their parents anymore. Institutions of all kinds have had to enforce regulations to...