 How old are you? 66. I'm 24. 29. 30. 56. 57. I'm 23. I'm 25. 54. 22. 23. 71. When did you guys get your first phone? 12. I was end of sixth grade. I got... Everyone had one. I got like an iPod touch when I was like 11. My first phone was like a little, like one of the slide ones, I was like probably 10. Just for safety. My mom wanted to keep in touch with me. I think I was in seventh grade. I was in seventh grade. Yeah, I got like a... I want to say sixth grade. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Probably I want to say fifth grade, but it was a flip phone. Yeah. I was in sixth grade, so I was 12 years old. And it was because both my parents worked. So they just needed to be able to reach me or have, you know, give me a way to reach them in case of emergencies. But yeah, nobody else I knew how to phone when I was 12. I had no reason to have a phone. I had absolutely no reason to have one at that age. I was in Catholic school. There was no reason for me to have one. It was high school, so I was like 13 or 14. Like a cell phone type? Yeah. And then I got it in 2005. So 18 years ago. So I would have been 40 something. 40 in my late 40s or middle 40s. Probably 40. Probably 40. Maybe 35. Yeah, it was a while ago. I would have been in my 20s, so that would have been 70s. First, well, landline, my parents always had a landline in their house. I had my own personal landline. I was probably 18, maybe. What was the first phone you ever had? A flip phone. You mean a cell phone? Yeah, it was definitely a flip phone. I was a go phone. Just, you know, you put minutes on it like you buy the cards and you put it. And the reason I got that, the only reason I got it is I was driving across country. I was moving to Seattle at the time and I just wanted a phone for when I was out in the sticks somewhere where there was no phone. So I got that for the trip and then I got my first smart phone when I moved out there, when I got out there. I didn't have an iPhone. It was touch screen, but, and it was, I guess, like a new wave for the time, but it slid. Yes, mine slid. Mine slid. I think it was like a black, not a blackberry. Sam's something. Yeah, mine was the same size. But it wasn't an iPhone. Yeah. Ooh, I got, it was a slidey keyboard one, you know, and I got it so I could text my parents to pick me up from softball practice. Yeah. I had a Motorola Razer flip phone for emergency use. Yeah. Razer flip phone. It was sick. A box phone in my vehicle. It was a landline phone before smart phones were invented or cell phones. How do you think that communication has changed over your guys' lifetime? I think that, I think that in-person communication has changed a lot because we have so much opportunity to like keep each other updated so often over like the phone and over text that like, I think it changes the significance and like the value in like getting together with your friends to like catch up on everything. It's like I text my friend every 25 minutes about what I've done. And so I think that has changed a lot. And also like, but it's also the benefit of it is like I get to talk to my parents so often because like they all have phones. Yeah, I mean, whether it be good or bad, like I feel like at this point like I rely on my phone and my technology just to be in touch between, you know, family members, friends, just making any general plans at all, just having that at the tip of my fingers is just, it makes it really easy and convenient, but also can be a little bit much. Definitely used to call my friends on the landline. Like definitely had more voice communication. Now it's mostly texting. I'd say a phone call here and there. I would say that too. I also think this doesn't really answer the question, but I think because I had like a Samsung and everything sort of moved to, if you have an Apple product and you're, you kind of are stuck in that sort of wave of just, they've sort of merged everything. So if you have a computer, you kind of have to get the iPhone. So I think in terms of that, like, you know, like you FaceTime more, it's hard to communicate with people that don't have iPhones. Not hard, but I just feel like I exclusively it depends on ride with the iPhone folk. Yeah, which has affected communication about it. Learning how to communicate and have like interpersonal relationships and growing and bonding with people has really changed from when I was taught as a child to how I learned how to interact with people. Now, the things that I've learned, lessons that I've learned, but COVID really took a good chunk out of me with having good communication with people. I started to isolate. So now my communication is like a bit lower, but technology has really helped me stay in contact with my friends even if I do isolate, which is really nice. Oh, gosh. Wow. I mean, most of my life, I feel like everyone's been able to reach me in a second, or at least since high school. So I don't know. Because I don't remember much of my life before then. It doesn't feel like it's changed very much. But I know as a kid, that wasn't the case. If I needed to reach a friend, you know, it was even just calling a landline like there was a chance you couldn't even reach them at home. So yeah, I just feel like the accessibility of communicating with people is so great today that we've also raised our expectation of being able to reach people. Yeah, that's true. And I actually find, I can't stand it. Just the other day I had to turn my phone on, like, do not disturb, which I've never actually done for a whole day and been like, I'm not going to think about anyone needs of me. And it felt really good. Yeah, I've actually been turning my phone on airplane mode at nighttime from like about 10pm until like about an hour after I wake up just to give myself decompression time and to not overwhelm myself and to really think about like my own self before anything else because I have a habit of putting all these other people who want to talk to me before myself. So I just take that time to like not be on tech. I think going from just like a regular flip phone to a smart phone was a big jump. So that was pretty cool to experience. So I remember playing like Fruit Ninja on the smart phone when it first came out. But now no one plays it anymore. But yeah, I think it's a lot of power and information technology and a handheld device, which has really expanded what we can do. So, yeah. Faster and faster it seems like. I mean, my roommate and I were about the same age and we were talking about it the other day and it was like, you know, we went from landlines to smart phones and, you know, your smart phone now has more computing technology than the Apollo missions when they went to the moon in the 60s. So it's come quite a long ways. Pretty much everything I had in my bedroom in the 80s is now part of this phone. Stereo had all that stuff. Well, I seem to no longer make phone calls. Everything is text or IMS or something like that. I very seldom it's kind of ironic to have a phone and not use it as a phone. But that's really the big thing. Yeah, it's just everything goes by text. Yeah. I think that it's exponential, right? I mean, it used to be that you wouldn't be able to reach anybody unless you called them under a landline. Can you imagine? You probably can't even imagine that. Yeah, it's been exponential. I mean, it's been crazy. It's changed everything from how you parent to how you communicate to everything. You know, it's changed immensely. Yes, I mean, it's continuous and it's hard to keep up with and it's hard for older people, I think, to be in the game. Dramatically. I mean, it used to be, especially when you were in business, people before cell phones, people actually had to figure things out on their own. Now they can use their phone as a device or they can call someone that would know the answer instead of figuring it out themselves. Oh, gosh. A cell phone is your computer now. You can do anything. You can GPS. You can Google. You can call. You can text. You can send pictures. Definitely big change. And what are some ways that technology has impacted society positively? Communication. Like lots of times I'll say to myself, how did we ever exist without cell phones? Where are you? Where are you going? I'm supposed to meet you. So communication is a whole lot easier between human beings now. I can't think of any positive things. I'm not a huge... I don't... I have a cell phone right in my pocket and it's great for... I think it's great for... you know, like finding our way to down here where before you had to use maps and things like that to figure it out or stop at a gas station and ask directions. Now you don't have to do that, but you don't have to communicate with people either because you can either use your phone or call someone on the phone. I think there's faster communication and in some ways that could be good if there's emergency situations. That's true. That's a good one. Yeah. Well, it can also... in some ways it helps loneliness and some ways it creates loneliness. So it's kind of a double-edged sword with that where people feel like they're connected but they're not truly connected. So it's kind of positive for people to feel like they're connected with each other through the social media and everything else that they can do every day on their phone, but at the same time it kind of hinders them from actually having full-on contact. I think that's a good thing. That's probably, unfortunately, the only positive I can think of. The ability to have information almost instantaneously is very powerful, but then you know, all the confusion in social media can just be kind of a side effect. Side effect of that. It's brought people together for really good reasons. It's brought, like, the Fail Cat community. It's helped people trap new-to-release cats, like, all over the U.S. There's huge groups now because of just small creators showing awareness to things, and I just really think communities can be built, like, in the snap of just some fingers overnight if they really want to. So I think it's good. Yeah, wow. Technology changes. It's wild. I mean, the economic impact is, like, massive. The ability to... I mean, telecoms, like, everything from Burlington's Burlington Telecom's fiber-optic network is incredible. I feel like a lot of people don't realize we have some of the best internet in the world here, so that affects not just, like, streaming, watching movies, but, like, competitive online gaming requires a really short latency, and that's achievable with the fiber-optic network, so we have... Yeah, there's so much going on there, and then you've got the satellite networks, Starlink, which not only provides consumer-level internet, but it's actually changed the game for international trading of securities, like, you know, big trading, stocks, options, whatever, because the ability to transmit their order to a market or across the globe, to the other side of the world is a lot faster now. So it gives traders this edge. So I'm just mentioning these things because these technological advancements don't just affect our lives on the consumer, and they affect such a massive aspect of the economy that then trickles down into how we live our lives. I think innovation is almost always a plus for society, and I think keeping in touch with people, I think workers and young people and everyone has, you know, more leverage against institutions and powerful people because they can communicate that way, so I think that's a good... I think that's a benefit. I'd say, like, from the creative standpoint, because I'm an artist, social media and digital publishing allows artists to get their art out if it's not drowned out by what's trending or whatever. What do you guys think are some negatives of technology? I mean, like, having the instant gratification of having information at your fingertips, there's obviously a lot of benefits to it, but I think that it also puts a lot of pressure on having to know everything all the time and, like, the influx of information that we're, like, exposed to just by, like, having smartphones is really a lot, and, like, I don't think I was meant to know everything that I know. I don't need to know all of it. And it's, like, I think causes a lot of, like, stress on to, like, feel like you have to know everything and, like, feel like you have this responsibility to keep up on everything that's going on in the world and, like, be the most morally superior because you have all of the resources in the world to know. I think it's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe more on a minor level, but, like, kind of feel less in touch with reality, like, not as grounded. Like, I feel like, at least me, recently, like, just, it's too easy to kind of go down a rabbit hole on my phone and the next thing I know it's, like, two in the morning, I'm, like, I could have, you know, come out having fun with friends, but rather I'm just scrolling through TikTok or Instagram and it makes it too easy to become complacent in life and rather than exploring cool different hobbies or things I might want to do I just get stuck on my phone watching people doing their hobbies. So, yeah, I think it's had a large impact especially in the last, like, couple years. Yeah, I totally agree. I think social media is a main reason why our generation is so separated from each other and so anxious to communicate with each other. Yeah, I think it makes for, like, a lot of, like, it's almost like a drug. Like, you kind of get, like, a really docile group of people that are kind of tuned out to a lot of, like, real-world issues and just, like, life in front of them, so that's obviously a bad thing, but yeah, I don't know. And then I guess, like, hacking, there's, like, a lot you're much more vulnerable to being taking advantage of that way. Which... And, like, too much access to each other kind of has made us, like, not really communicate well, I think. Yeah, that's definitely, like, coincided with a mental health crisis, too, is just, like, this access to social media and technology. Like before, it's brought bad people together. There's a lot of stuff online that really shouldn't be online and shouldn't be shared. There's, like, people can be hateful and stuff behind screens and not really have kind of, like, the repercussions of it. Unless you're doing, like, really, really bad stuff even then. Like, there's still, like, almost zero repercussions. And lots of nasty stuff can happen on the internet. It's...the internet's really big. Anything can happen on it, I'm pretty sure. So... Oh, yeah. It goes through the roof, like she said. Oh, my God, yeah. And on top of that, just, like, the social media aspect in general. Cancel culture? Cancel culture is the thing. Yeah, but I'm just thinking more our competitive nature as a capitalist society, social media just seems to be accelerating mental illnesses or accelerating a sense of worthlessness within our population. Everyone not feeling like they're valuable to society or to the people around them. And a lot of that comes through this ability to communicate constantly, to look at into other people's lives and see how they're living. And we just keep comparing ourselves to everyone. And, like, literally constantly. Like, it's like no one can escape it even when I acknowledge this and say it, like, I'm going to go home later and go on Instagram and I'm going to see people doing things and I'm going to think, like, maybe I should be doing those things too. Everyone looks at that. That's cool. Like, we define what success is and happiness and suffering and our worth based on the collective concept, our collective ideologies. And that's just getting so crazy with the way telecoms are working now. And then we've got, like, social media algorithms, right? That are pushing that want us to stay more engaged, so they're keeping us engaged. They're moving information, they're distributing media based on what they think will keep you engaged. But there's an inverse relationship there, or not an inverse, but yeah, I guess maybe it's inverse, that we're not really considering where the consumer is also influencing the algorithms. And the algorithms are influencing the consumer and it just feels like nobody's really in control, nobody knows where this is going because it's not just the algorithm and it's not just people making bad decisions, it's like we're just spiraling into delusions and it's cool because you get new fashion statements and all these different branches of culture but they all seem to be emerging always not just from a point of view of let's explore life and just create for the sake of creation it's like always in the point of view of like I should be this because it's better than that there's always this competitive nature in culture and I feel like our telecoms and social media are just, it's just accelerating so quickly and these conversations aren't happening enough. Well, it lets people feel brave and be as they say, keyboard warriors just troll people and not have to show their face and have any repercussions to what they're saying to people so that's I think the biggest negative it's kind of Pandora's box. Pretty much everybody has their phone and they're looking at it while they're walking and not really engaged and also going to a restaurant and seeing families where they just entertain their child with a cell phone instead of having a conversation or using crayons on a you know, placement. I think just not figuring things out for yourself and I think is a definite the personal discussions back and forth with other people everyone's on their cell phone instead of communicating verbally well I guess you're still communicating verbally but not in a I don't think it's in a positive so people spend way too much time even me at my age I mean we sit down at a restaurant and my cell phone is out I'm checking emails, I'm checking text messages so much reliance on cell phones where people don't call each other people don't write each other the way that we used to How do you think that technology is going to impact future generations? You know, I think it's changed so much in my lifetime over the last 40 or 50 years it's going to be amazing what happens I can see them putting a chip in your ear or something so that you don't even have to use a phone you just I'm sure it's going to develop further and will become a society that doesn't communicate with each other except for through those technology devices Landlines pay phones there are things that people don't even know used to exist a rotary phone gosh, you probably don't even know what a rotary phone looks like so I think information instantaneously is going to be something that future generations are just going to be used to I think it's just going to continue to change and I can't even imagine what they'll come up with I think that what's going to happen is they're probably at some point going to have to get a grip on how it's used and who's using it and what they're using if we're talking about artificial intelligence or anything else that's coming down the line there's going to have to be some sort of regulation to protect a lot of the young folks that get very negatively impacted by some of the things that go on so that will be important that we get that in some sort of some sort of lane to make it so that it's going to be okay useful but okay for everybody more and more I've been watching a lot of articles or reading a lot of articles and watching things about AI everything heading that way that's going to be the next big impact on people is using either AI to tell stories make videos whatever but I think that's going to be the next big lead and how do you see technology impacting future generations we're going to get more and more involved with our phones I think for better or worse and yeah hopefully we just have ways to kind of educate ourselves on the best way to use that technology without getting too wrapped into it I know I could be better so we'll see thank you that's it cool alright oh a lot I think that I mean I think that like the both sides of like the goods and the bads are just going to continue to be like exacerbated and like what a beautiful thing that like kids now have like consistent access to internet like at school and they have access to a Chromebook and like lots of like great opportunities for like especially learning in turn or like so I used to work in schools but like kids that usually wouldn't have access to a lot of like like adaptations to learning that like now that works better for them because they can stay home and learn or they can like be in a separate room if a classroom doesn't work for them and there's all these like great accommodations for like learning but also you know there's like when you're a nine year old on like kick and not that that's the thing anymore but like in a there's all of this exposure to the connection between like kids and the rest of the world that is not necessarily looking out for their best interest and I think that is like only going to continue to be exacerbated as like information continues the world of information continues to like grow and like kids younger and younger and younger have access to the internet and like access to like media literacy which is like kind of scary but also a lot of benefits it's very it's very hard yeah I mean I think even now it's just getting exponentially more prominent in kids lives like I was in high school back in 2014 and I had gone to an iPad in my class which was like huge and now it's just like kind of the standard to see that like it would be kind of weird to not have like a Chromebook or an iPad in any given class um and I think there is obviously a lot of pros and cons that comes with it like having all these pretty much unlimited resources at your fingertips is awesome for kids this these generations but also can be blown out of proportion you could be accessing things that maybe you don't need to at that age or just yes things that you shouldn't really be exposed to yet um so I think it's only going to be exacerbated as the years go on but it's kind of hard to tell exactly where it will go thank you guys so much of course first I'm going to mention iPad babies um the whole coca melon thing I'm not sure if you saw that whole thing it's terrifying where like the song plays and the kid just runs to the TV like these kids have iPads like babies have iPads and they can work them and everything um and it's insane because kids should be interacting with nature and learning from that instead of like actual internet stuff um parenting I feel they've kind of slacked off a little bit by just giving their kids technology when really it shouldn't be that it should be you and your child um I think this is like just like a random thing I think um VR can positively affect people with disabilities say people who can't walk they can walk in game and like VR chat and they can make friends and stuff um I think that's nice but I also think the internet needs more security and stuff because it's getting bigger and it's not good the whole thing is going to come to an end when encryption goes out the window oh god when artificial well not artificial intelligence but quantum computing could basically ruin every security feature that's out there so like banking systems like everything could come to an end yeah but um back to the question which was about how can future generations be impacted by technology right future generations yeah yeah so just thinking about like we were I don't know kind of on the edge of this of screens always being in front of us I keep calling everyone we're children of the screen and I think um at least for myself and probably you too we're video gamers so growing up with those technologies have benefited me in the sense that when I run into a new user interface or a new software because of that previous experience I'm able to understand it really quickly and like navigate know know how the software works whereas like if I put my parents in front of the computer and said hey can you do this even though they did grow up with computers they didn't grow up with like all these user interfaces so they don't learn as quick um but then yeah the downside is the children of the screen our like attention spans are so shortened our desire to avoid boredom like boredom has a valuable benefit in our lives and our mental health and we're not getting that anymore the younger kids aren't getting it at all I mean it's weird to see people walking down as babies because of the screens like it's a way too much stimulation they're not supposed to have that much when they're like just born and stuff it's not good for their brains you'll see toddlers with iPads like walking down it's so bad for them I don't know if they got anything of their surroundings while they were here um video games for me as a kid I think the gaming community affects everybody differently depending on how you're raised and like the environment that you're in um the internet and video games can be used as a tool of escapism like for coping and stuff or it can be used to learn or to do bad things there's a little bee flying around your head just letting you know hello sir um and for me say with like animal crossing and stuff I grew up middle of nowhere remote those were my friends when I had nobody to talk to you when I was tiny I would go on have like my little NPC friends um but now these days I'll go I'll go like onto like my rhythm games or like anything and I've got actual friends who I can communicate with but um people who I'm meeting are like from Singapore and everywhere else so I'm meeting people from like all across the world and it's the best thing so I think technology has positively impacted me in a way but also very negatively because I wasn't taught about the dangers as a child and I really hope with the future generations um they'll be taught about the dangers of the internet and they won't have to go what went through learning it the hard way um I think that it could get better or worse like I think about like like what is it like the metaverse and stuff I feel like more stuff could become online and at a concerning level um yeah I was going to say that too I feel like education might become like a little bit um not obsolete but I just think like there's not going to be as much of a need for people to do this like very traditional form of learning because you just have so much information yeah um especially with AI and stuff like that maybe with more awareness to how it's negatively impacted maybe people will learn how to work around that I think so too I feel like like this um like the the social what do they call it like just like the mental health crisis that comes with Instagram and stuff like that I feel like that might phase out and people are going to get over that yeah