First Impressions of Earth

As a child of Generation Y, the Internet has been the technological consumer product that has played an integral part in my personal development. I may be partial in saying this, as I am going into a computer-based field, but this medium has exposed me to a world I would not have seen otherwise. Web sites like YouTube have made production more accessible to the American population and have enabled whole new genres to emerge. Its so hard to believe how far the Internet, and the computer, have progressed in their short lives. While this was my helper in cultural development, for generations before me, the television was the invention that changed how people got their information and entertainment.

After interviewing my grandmother, the 81-year-old Dawn Frojelin, I have come to connect the relationship I have with the Internet to the relationship she had with the television when she was young. TV was not something that everyone could originally afford. The first time she saw a broadcasted video  signal was, like many, in a department store. In 1947, all that was available for consumers were televisions with seven inch screens that displayed on black and white images, but she still "couldn't believe it; we expected it to be something on the wall that used a projector," just like the way the movies work. When her family for a TV for their own home, approximately one year later, the set only received one channel from the Chicago area, and the only programs available were about news and wrestling. The most famous early programs were produced in New York, too far away from the signal. Only on a trip to the big city was she finally able to see shows such as 'I Love Lucy,' which was one of the ones that was making up pop culture at the time. Color television was the next step in innovation, and in 1967 when the family got their first full color set, the Ed Sullivan Show and entertainment & situation comedies were now available to the American audience. "None like them today!" she exclaimed over the phone.