It’s hard to imagine a world without the technological advances that we use every day. I can barely remember what it was like not to be able to call anyone at any time from where ever I might be. I’ve almost forgotten what the inside of a video store looks like or what life was like before email and the internet. Technology has made life easier. It has connected us to others and yet I wonder if, in ways, it’s isolating us more.

This week your Creativity Corner prompt will take you back to a time when you could barely imagine some of the technology that we have at our fingertips now.

The Tech Effect

Think about today’s technology and choose one advancement that you take advantage of every day that you didn’t have access to when you were a child (e.g., email, internet, mp3 players, cell phones, etc.).

Now write for 10 minutes about what life was like before you had access to this technology. Describe the way you lived without the technology and how you coped. What technology was available that the new technology has replaced? What were the positives and negatives of not having the technology at that time?

Take 10 more minutes to write about what life is like with access to the technology you’ve chosen. What are the positives and negatives now? Compare and contrast the time before and after you had access to that technology. Are you happy to have the new technology or do you miss life without it? How do you think your life would be different if you didn’t have access to this technology or if you were to give it up for a day? A month? A year? Could you survive life the way it used to be now that you’ve learned to live life with access to the technology you’re writing about?

When you’re finished, please feel free to share a paragraph or two of your writing in the comments or post the exercise on your own blog and leave a comment here with a link to your writing. Remember, these are exercises. The results don’t have to be perfect. But to benefit from them, you actually have to do the work. Now head to your corners and come out writing!