Hello, My Name is Lauren and I'm a Tech Addict...
After years of struggling to find the perfect balance between my many gadgets, I think I have finally achieved it! As far back as I can remember, I was always a huge tech enthusiast. The obsession most likely stems from my father, brother, and cousin who would spend days working on computers as a hobby. I still remember the day my Dad first brought home his work laptop and showed us how to play a game on it. His laptop ran MS-DOS (that's how long ago this was) and we had to learn to type in a code that allowed us to run the game because there was no "desktop homepage" like everyone is used to having now. Instantly, I was hooked, and eventually over the years I moved onto playing more advanced games, building websites/blogs, having an AOL instant messenger obsession, and then of course came the rise in social media. Having one or two gadgets used to be normal when I began my technological adventure, but now having two to four is more common! You also have the added decision of choosing what brand suits you better.
My High School Years:
Yes, those are all flip phones that I actually owned at one time or another. I missed the non-flip, non-color, brick cellphone period as I wasn't allowed to get one until I started high school. My PC was mainly used for playing games (of course), researching & writing schoolwork, learning to create girly websites/blogs, and of course AOL. I knew nothing about Apple products back then.
My College Years:
As a high school graduation present, my parents wanted to get me my first laptop for college. After some researching, I was drawn to the first generation of Macbook Pros as I was going to college for graphic design & video production. I eventually upgraded my phone to Verizon's first Droid phone, and then eventually upgraded to an iPhone 3G at the end of my college years. I didn't have much time for PC gaming and mobility was my biggest necessity.
Recent College Graduate:
Sadly, I accidentally broke my precious Macbook Pro beyond repair thus causing me to upgrade to a newer version. I finally fell into the iPad craze as well and ended up with one of those along with a new iPhone. After a few months, I realized all I used my iPad for was to read and it was too heavy and bulky to carry it with me just for that. So, I eventually broke my Apple product cycle and got a Nook.
Right Now:
I now use each of my gadgets for a specific purpose instead of just using whichever one is nearest to me. I have finally gotten over my PC prejudice and realize it's actually BETTER to use for my hobbies. My Alienware PC is used for gaming, video editing, and Photoshop, my new Macbook Air comes with me to night school and is what I use at home to browse the web, my iPad Mini is my travel reading & gaming companion, and lastly my iPhone is my main communication device.
It's so fun looking out over your history of gadgets. It makes you realize what was once important to you (in a digital sense) compared to what is now. What are your go-to digital devices today? Does each have a specific purpose in your life?
cool first comment I think
ReplyDeleteI remember my first computer experience was with my uncles desktop. It ran MS-DOS and most of the games were on multiple floppy disks. Eventually there was a desktop managing tool and the games were there, like that one where you ski down the mountain and avoid the yeti, or the one where you connect pipes to avoid green goo spilling out everywhere.
ReplyDeleteA few years later we got those colourful Apple Macs at school, I think it was grade 4. I loved playing this one game where you controlled a spinning stick in a field of dots to which it would connect. You had to control the direction in spun in, and when to grab on to another dot to avoid obstacles and such. I have not been able to find out what is was called to this day.
After reluctantly giving up on Nokia (I went through about 5 stages of nokia in it's evolution - even a slide keyboard) I finally got a flip phone. I had a pink motorola, like some kind of cliche. Then more sliding phones with qwerty boards, until I got an early touch phone. It was an LG and it was awful. I then went through iPhones (3G, 3GS), then a Samsung Galaxy, then a Sony Xperia, and now my favourite so far The Galaxy Note.
I built my own PC for gaming and work and fun, and I use my phone for communication. I have a Nexus 7 (tablet) but don't use it much, and have an ASUS laptop that I don't use unless I am visiting my parents and need to take it with me for uni.
Surprisingly, I use paper exclusively at uni, as my lecturers insist on certain their presentations layouts and such, so I just keep them all the same to be consistent, and I find I learn better that way than typing.