My Journey to Techno-Literacy

Let’s set the scene: it’s a typical hot and humid day in 1996 Miami, Florida. My parents and I have just arrived back home from a trip to Circuit City with a hefty set of boxes in tow. Being five years old, I expected to open those boxes and find new toys (that I would reluctantly have to share with my baby sister). But when my parents set up what was actually inside – a personal television, maybe? – I was confused, but intrigued. What was this thing, and was I allowed to play with it?

At first, the answer to the latter was a resounding “No.” The Compaq Presario that now graced my home office was mainly there to give my parents a tool to work on “work stuff” while at home. This would not, and could not, stand. Not in MY house. Did they really expect me to just let this thing sit there? I needed to know how it  worked!

My parents encouraged my curiosity and bought me some games to keep me entertained: Madeline’s European Adventure, Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When it’s Dark Outside, and Freddie Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp. I was in heaven. Now I had an alternative to playing with my Barbie dolls, or my Legos, or my coloring books, or any of the other things stuffed in the ever-flowing toy tanks in my house. Hey, a girl needs options.

I took to this machine like a fish to water and quickly burned through these first few games, replaying them over and over even after having finished their pre-programmed adventures. But, like Ariel in Disney’s The Little Mermaid, I wanted more. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait too long for new games to come my way, and the following year I hit the jackpot: Barbie games galore. I could search for deep sea treasure in Adventures with Barbie: Ocean Discovery, learn to ride and train horses in Barbie Riding Club, play Watson to Barbie’s Sherlock in Detective Barbie: Mystery of the Carnival Caper, or simply give Barbie and her friends endless makeovers in Barbie Magic Hair Styler. This, I thought, was the height of luxury. I now had the ability to seemingly interact with the inanimate dolls I played with daily.

Through these games and my computer classes at school (which started when I was in kindergarten), I quickly learned the ins and outs of working with these magical machines. I feel as though having grown up with them so prevalent in my life – though not like how children now are inextricably linked to iPads from infancy – gave me a technological proficiency that I’ve come to value. I work well with technology, and the games I played in my youth allowed me to enter worlds that fostered my creativity and pushed my mind to absorb as much as I could take in. This heavily influenced my love of reading, yet another outlet for me to escape to when I was bored with the mundane details of first and second grade.

Over time, I’ve harnessed the capacity to work well with many forms of tech, both recreationally and professionally. This makes me pretty reliable in the workplace, and as the resident IT person in my own home. Although I’ve come to depend on certain forms of technology, I feel as though they have only bolstered my literacy tenfold. My handwriting was “for the ants,” as one of my high school teachers put it. But when I typed my thoughts out digitally, my words and ideas became clear to people outside this party of one. Using my phone and laptop – essentially appendages at this point – is second nature to me, and because I feel so comfortable with them I can use them to keep learning.

All this and we didn’t even touch upon my first true love, my Gameboy Pocket! But alas, this narrative is supposed to be brief.  😊

Featured image source: Yours truly!