Let’s explore why modern mothers must become digital masters.
It was one of those ‘battery recharging’ sessions I would have if I’d worked a hectic week. I was catching up on my internet surfing and goings-on via Facebook. I came across a TED talk that I wanted to watch. One talk led to another, and before I knew it, I was learning about the flag design of cities and what happens when our computers get more intelligent than we are.
But an afternoon spent like this is never actually lazy
It gets my ideas pumping and my brain whirring. I was thinking about how I use technology to run my home and organise my children and how things will be so different when my children manage their own homes. When my mother needs to make a shopping list, she reaches for a pen and paper. As a child born just after the war, she was brought up with a ‘make do and mend’ mentality, so her paper is the back of last year’s Christmas cards that she has saved for list-making.
When I need to make a shopping list, I go to the app on my iPhone. My formative years have been a mix of ‘make do and mend’ from my mother alongside the environmental concerns of Gen X, so I don’t like to waste paper. I send a mixture of actual Christmas cards and e-cards so I don’t go down my mother’s list-making route, and besides, pixels can be deleted and lists ticked off without creating more recyclable or landfill waste.
My children will probably have a smart fridge. I predict that modern mothers in 2030* will probably have a refrigerator that recognises when the milk is getting low via a weight sensor in the door, and sends this information via wifi to the LCD screen on the fridge door.
From there, the fridge can practically add items to its virtual basket, and once the householder is ready to place an order, send this request to whichever online supermarket we have configured into the fridge operating system. Our appliances may be more intelligent than we are in the future – scary thought. Or maybe it would be empowering if we did what we needed to and educated ourselves now.
My son and her peers are true digital natives. The first generation was brought up in an age where we could play an online game with someone we’d never met on the other side of the world or communicate what we had for breakfast with our thousands of Instagram followers. It is natural for today’s teenagers to put videos of their dance routines onto YouTube for the world to comment on. But do we want to get ahead in digital, how much does it cost anyway. Read More.
