This post is dedicated to AKanbiemu, who I met through Facebook.
New way of communicating
Well, no doubt the way we interact with people is WAY different than about twenty years ago. I was 19 when I set up my first email account (and I needed help from my younger sister to set it up). I wasn’t born with a computer chip in my brain, like the kids these days. There was no such thing as social media (like Facebook and Instagram) for individuals to re-connect with old friends and make new friends locally and around the world; and YouTube for posting videos about anything and everything.
New friends
AKanbiemu lives in Nigeria, Africa. Chatting with him is a reminder of a couple of things:
- I know very little about other countries.
So to explore this further, I am a bit ashamed to say that I know nothing at all about Nigeria and so many other countries. I have travelled parts of the world including, Cuba, China, Australia, parts of USA, Japan, parts of Canada, but left so many places untravelled. I will do more research about other countries this year. Maybe I will post about what I learn. Just chatting with AKanbiemu, I caught a glimpse of what life is like in Nigeria.
2. Now, we can have pen-pals without the pens!
Does anyone know or remember what a pen-pal is? Haha, maybe you forgot what snail-mail (regular mail delivered by a postman/woman) is too?
Well, in elementary school, the schools basically connected with other schools around the world and each student would write a letter on a piece of PAPER (yes, paper!) about themselves and what they do in their respective countries and then the teacher would mail out our letters. Then the student abroad would also write and send us a letter about themselves. It was so exciting to receive these letters in the mail and hold them in our hands.
Well, with social media, we can now chat with people all over the world. It is awesome to re-connect with some old friends online.
Gone is letter writing and cursive writing
I am really glad to have been part of the letter-writing and cursive/handwriting era. Apparently, schools no longer teach handwriting. So sad. Anyway, I hold onto and cherish all my paper letters from my friends. There was just something special about the anticipation of receiving a reply to my letters, going to the mailbox and retrieving a letter. The mailbox is not so great for bills though -so pre-authorized payment plans are great for this!
In this thing called life, we must make goals for ourselves – mine will be to travel the world. But first, I must travel all over Canada (to complete my book research for my Winter Moose series.
What do you cherish and hold onto from the era past? I would love to hear from you…