Starting at the age of four I was fascinated with the Jetsons. Every time I saw those phones with TV screens attached I wondered, “Will I still be alive when they finally get around to making one of those?”
Last weekend, my own four-year-old daughter stood before her aunt/uncle/cousins’ TV and watched her grandmother, a snowbird from Florida, skyping with us for the first time. She pressed her hands to the screen, mesmerized, and gasped. “Grandma,” she whispered, “are you real?”
After a few exchanges, she had a fantastic idea. “I want to play hide and seek,” she announced as Grandpa peeked at her over her grandmother’s shoulder. “Follow me!” And with that, she bolted into the kitchen, abandoning her bemused grandparents on the TV screen.
Apparently, today’s generation of four-year-olds have far greater expectations of technology than mine did. Not that I, a not-so-proud owner of a VCR, boom box and answering machine, by any right should speak for an entire generation.
Now that she’s mastered her ABC’s, perhaps my girl can clarify the difference between the iPhone, iPad and iPod? Until then, I’m still waiting for moving sidewalks, robots who can feel emotion, and my very own flying saucer.