Last month, I happened to watch an interview of a Chinese student studying abroad. At one point the hostess asked: "For how long have you been away from home?" "Three years," he said. "How do you keep in touch with your parents?" "We wrote emails," the young man replied proudly. "Then I guess your parents learned how to send an email just because of you, right?" Having heard this from the hostess, the young man was speechless for a long time. Indeed, in the world today, it is not easy for the elder generation to keep up to date with the rapid development of technology.
This story reminded me of my concerns when I first left home for college three years ago: My parents don't understand English. They couldn't identify the buttons marked in English on our remote controls. So when I was away from home, who would help them select Chinese subtitles when they wanted to watch a foreign movie on our DVD? My parents don't use pinyin, the phonetic symbols for Chinese. Therefore, they couldn't input Chinese characters into their cell phones using the keyboard. Without me, whom could they depend on when they needed to reply to a text message? I worried a lot, so before I left, I carefully prepared a flow chart on how to operate the DVD player, and stored as many template messages in my parents' phones as I could possibly think of.
Fortunately, my efforts did work for my parents. However, what makes me more optimistic is that society at large is becoming more concerned about the elder generation, and the fruit of technological innovation is no longer believed to be an asset only for the young people. Today, with simple Chinese instructions on the remote control, even my 80-year-old grandfather can play his favorite TV program on a DVD. Last year, with the money I earned from a part-time job, I bought my mother a new cell phone which supports handwritten messages instead of inputting words through a keyboard. And now, my mother no longer has to use the templates messages I've stored for her, instead, she now sends me messages as long as 300 words. The joy I have when reading those text messages is inexpressible, not only because of the words she writes, but also because our technology has indeed become a real blessing in her life.
Two years ago, the counter service in our neighborhood bank was replaced by an ATM station. With those intelligent machines, people can carry out all their regular banking services. My father, however, was not used to such a change. Thereafter, he always walked three blocks further to a bank with a counter to use their services. In the future, however, this will no longer happen, because when I went to that ATM station again last spring festival, I found a delightful change: the terminals there have adopted a voice guidance system. While I was there, I noticed a grey haired man using the voice instructions. And despite his hesitation between pressing the buttons, he left the bank with a satisfactory smile. What a marvel! My vision for the future was unfolding before my very eyes. At that moment, I rejoiced thinking of my father, someday, standing there using the banking service. I rejoiced thinking of myself that when I become old, the new inventions can still ease my life rather than making the life harder.
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