Technology is Still Exciting – Even in 2009

My grandmother, who is a young and hip 71 years old joined Facebook last week. Now that, my friends, is exciting.

I've been a Facebook member for about a year and a half, but only in the last three or four months have I really embraced it. I find Facebook fun, easy and a really great way to keep in touch ... and know what my friends and colleagues are up to on a daily, hourly and oftentimes minute-by-minute basis. Let's all just admit right now how nosy we actually are! I will!

And finding people is a snap! Just think back long and hard to your best friend in third grade, and type in his or her name in the Facebook search engine. My non mathematical calculations with no backup whatsoever tell me that you have a one in two chance of having that person's name, photo and a way to reach them pop up. Well, that's at least been my experience.

However, I have an atypical memory and remember people, places, things and events that have long since left most people's minds. My friends unofficially consider me the historian of all things irrelevant until necessary. They know I will know how to get in touch with just about anybody, that I'll remember who so and so had a crush on in 9th grade and probably what song we all danced to together at the prom. So thinking of my best friend in third grade that I haven't talked to since ... third grade ... really wasn't that hard for me. And yes, I really did find her on Facebook.

And now amongst all of Facebook contacts, is my awesome grandmother, Willi. You can call her Gram – everybody else does!

I had to give Gram rule number one before she even signed up: do not ever, ever, ever write anything that you, nor I, nor anybody in our family would prefer that the entire Facebook community not know. A simple, but important rule that at times slips all of our minds!

Gram and I have actually both come a long way since 1996 when our extremely mysterious, frustrating yet oddly liberating personal computer arrived at 1807 Doomar Drive. We were in awe of the staticy, beepy and strange sound it made as it dialed up at 33.6 ks. Wow, super fast, we thought!

All of a sudden, we were connected to a whole new world of Web sites and e-mail addresses. And the annoyances that come along with any type of technology - like getting kicked offline like a gazillion times! Gram admits that she didn't even know where the on/off button was, and I barely did. We muddled through it together, and when we each learned something new, we'd write sticky notes to each other and share information.

Soon we had both found e-mail pen pals, and eventually the rest of the world caught on, and we were communicating with our friends and family instantaneously and surfing the Web with ease.

However, it seems like all that the Web has to offer has been in a holding pattern since the late 1990s. E-mail and Web surfing were about it. Now, with social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace, the Web has meaning and purpose again! Now people can find just about anybody, share photos, share articles, write blogs and even network!

Technology sure is something. I am a Generation Xer who had the first Beta player (oh gosh, so many people won't even know what that is) on my street to now having a very powerful handheld computer, but I'm still in awe of how technology has evolved in the last 15 years.

Who knew that one day we could check our e-mails on a teeny little touch screen, and send photos and videos through wireless connections? I still have no idea how it works, but it is way cool!

It reminds me of how I felt in 1985 watching the "Back to the Future" series of movies where people were speaking through video phones and living in a futuristic city with flying DeLorean cars and hoverboards.

Funnily, Gram and I saw those movies in the theater a long time before purchasing the personal computer that started our bi-generational technology journey. Back then, we wondered if all the things portrayed in the movie would really come true. Obviously, we know the answer to that. Well, I’m still holding out for the hoverboards.

Who knows what will happen next? I can only imagine how exciting the future of technology will be for you, me and my Gram. Maybe as exciting as it was for us almost 25 years ago, when at the end of "Back to the Future" Doc Brown says, "Where we're going …. We don't need roads."