Kids' lives these days are filled with instant gratification. When I was growing up, calling a friend involved the following steps:
- Get a phone book and look up the friend's number.
- Pick up the phone and make sure no one was already on the line.
- Wait for my mom to get off the phone.
- Pick up the phone.
- Fight with my sister about who needed to use the phone next.
- Pick up the phone.
- Wait for my dad to get off the phone.
- Dial my friend — we had a rotary phone. This process could take up to five minutes if you messed up the number or if your friend had a lot of nines in her number.
- Listen to the busy tone.
- Hang up the phone.
- Repeat steps two through 10.
- When the busy tone finally stops, let the phone ring for a few minutes.
- Walk to your friend's house to see if she is home avoid avoid another repeat of steps two through 10.
These days, if kids wants to call a friend, they just click the name on their phone and, if the friend doesn't answer, just leave a message or text. If there's a show they want to watch, it's available On Demand. If there's a book they want to read, they can download it on their Kindle or have a drone from Amazon deliver it. If there's a question they need answered, they turn to Google. Though WebMD is my friend when my child is sick at 3 a.m., for the rest of things in life, I've learned that there is great pleasure in anticipation, and the act of figuring something out, just searching for an answer, is a gift in itself.
