The Generation Game

On Mothering Sunday me, my mum and my granny went out for lunch. Three generations all together I saw it as the perfect opportunity to bring up the discussion of the effect of ‘modern tech’ on how our world communicates.

My mum is addicted to her phone, and her ipad for that matter and is all for modern technology. She’s good at keeping in contact with loved ones and likes to creep on me and my sisters facebook activity now we’ve all moved away from home. ‘Especially with Nicola in Australia its fab to be able to Facetime and Skype to keep in touch’. Our family even have a clan Whatsapp which allows us to all keep uptodate with each others' activities on a daily basis. Although sometimes it’s hard to get mums attention because her eyes and fingers are glued to her phone...

(can’t say I’m not guilty of this too)

I think overall she uses technology in a positive way to keep in touch with the people who are most important to her.

 Now my granny being over 90 I’m sure you’d all guess what her response was- most likely beginning with a cliché ‘back in my day things were much easier…’ but what you’ll find surprising is how tech savvy my nearly 92 year old granny really is! Her actual response went like this ‘ och I couldn’t live without my mobby Hannah’.  My granny is a complete socialite and depends on her humble Nokia phone to get in touch with her pals to meet up for an Ashvale chippy or invite friends round for her homemade ‘Australia buns’ ( still not sure what an Australia bun actually involves). As she lives alone its great to keep her in contact with her many friends, as she explained how just the other day she sent her friend a text and the next minute she was knocking on her door! She however did explain she thinks there’s a time and a place for technology. ‘Now I don’t like seeing those mums on the phone with toddlers running wild around them’ and she ‘ canny abide folk yapping away on their phones on the bus’ .

 Wise words from granny Carnegie, I think her conclusion is completely valid. If it weren’t for technology my socialite granny would perhaps be living a much more lonely life and my mum wouldn’t be able to keep in touch with (creep on) her 3 beloved daughters. But granny Carnegie is right, there’s a time and a place for these things and we need to all understand those boundaries better. Technology can bring us together but once it has, part with your phone and connect with the people around you.