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Impressionable Minds
 Were you one of the first families in your neighborhood to get a computer? And perhaps one of the first to see what AOL was all about? If not, what do you suppose that felt like? Such an exciting time in one’s life, standing (or actually probably sitting) at the brink of a great new technological revolution.
Most people can not even imagine what type of agonizing anticipation had to be building while sitting in a chair staring at the mammoth screen and hearing that strange sound coming from another new toy, the modem. It must have been pretty heady stuff thinking about all of the information that was sure to come to them as they waited for it to connect. Of course today if it takes a minute to connect people consider it slow and truthfully things have come a long way from the time that dial up Internet connections were the only choice available.
Even if you were not one of the first to experience this fascinating new technology, you surely have seen some improvements even in a limited capacity. Not too long ago there was a story about a young child getting their first glimpse of a computer and they were duly impressed of course. However, as they checked it out further they came across these little smiley faces and said that it had to be a Wal-Mart commercial, the one they show when talking about rolling back prices.
 Their uncle told them that it was not a commercial that people used those as symbols for how they were feeling. Relating that they could be found in emails and messaging and even text messaging as a way to express feelings. The kids thought they were great and the uncle said that he did not see anything unusual about them and they had been around forever. This got him to thinking about how they started so they decided to check out the history.
Once some information was brought up and he showed the children what these MSN emoticons or smileys used to look like, way back when.
The kids were impressed about how much better they looked now and their uncle realized that since he had been around to see all the evolving it did not appear to be a drastic change. It took a young, impressionable child to point out that changes are happening constantly and it may be a good idea to slow down and actually check a few of those moments out.
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