Adam Blatner

In a recent trip to California we used a GPS (geographic positioning system) as a new electronic device in our rental car and I was impressed with it. In combination with a cell-phone, we were able to navigate to some places (and in time for the appointment) that otherwise might have left me lost, exasperatedly driving around!

The cell phone also found a new use: Keeping different members of a family in touch and coordinated at a theme park. My family went to Disneyland and our party—daughter, son-in-law, niece, her husband, the four little kids, my wife and I, used 4 cell phones to keep in touch!  We were moderately successful in minimizing episodes of getting lost as some of us took the boys on one kind of ride while others went off with the little girls on a different group of rides. In the olden days (smile) I remembered the problem of how easy it was to get separated and lost, how much time needed to be spent in coordinating, waiting, finding each other.

While I generally keep the cell phone turned off, don’t use text messaging, don’t have a television set, still I am curious about how the new media may change the way we live. Recently read an article in the paper about folks who text-message each other scores of time each day, and even when “asleep” at night!!