From Old School to New

Maria Jones was born on August 17, 1939 and is now 64 years old. She was born in La Ciudad de Panama, Panama and was born into a family of nine with five brothers and three sisters. Her occupation is Manager of Sales at CitiBank in Burbank and is my mom’s co-worker and best friend. Maria is currently living in Rancho Cucamonga and has two daughters and is the grandmother to both of her daughters’ children. I personally know her and she is a good friend and is like a family member to my family.

Telecommunications, like the phone system that we had back in the days were the ones where you put your finger through and you had to dial it. The newer phones we have today you can just push, or touch a button and it does a lot of things, you can speed dial by touching the button and you don’t have to actually have to dial it manually. So the technology from back then to now has really been an advantage to, to me I can say, and of course to the society, as well.

Early telephones had a receiver as well as a handset. The newer telephones today is one combination receiver, and handset all-in-one, one piece. The newer telephones have some really great advantages to it. It shows the displays, gives you the time, it also shows the numbers that you are dialing, it also shows the number of the people who are calling in, it displays the telephone number as well, you can speed dial it, you can program numbers into it, it’s a speaker phone, and basically has a whole lot of advantages versus the old phone. Where in the old phone you had to automatically dial all your numbers manually; it did not have a place for you to actually list or have a phonebook, and a speakerphone. So with the newer telephones today versus the old ones, of course the preference is always in the new technology that is out today.

On the cordless phone I can take that phone and can walk all around the house as I’m doing things, I can talk on the phone and go outside, go to another room, the advantages there is they also have a piece that you can have a piece that you can have a head…earpiece where you can actually walk around and not have the phone on you. The cord phones are limited to one stationed area because the cord can only go so far and you cannot, and you don’t have the advantage of free moving yourself around and having hands-free. On the cordless phones you can actually free your hands up a tons so there is a big difference both in all. Is there any reason why you would like this because besides like the cordless phones having the freedom to walk where ever, distance and not have troubles compared to the cord phones like where you might trip over or something? Of course it is very much better to have a cordless phone because you are able to maneuver a lot better versus…I’m sorry the cordless phone is a lot better to have than the cord phone because your hands are free and you can do more.

Long distance calls that use a cell phone on the weekend is absolutely free versus using your own telephone where you will be charged for minutes the service at the um the cell phones provided for you is you have extra amount of minutes that you can use. After a certain time of night which would be free along with the weekends so using a cell phone for long distance is a pleasure because you don’t have to worry about having a large bill. Is there any one that you use your long distance calls for, like any one you know or care about? Yes, I have families, my husband’s family in New Orleans, so we do call and speak to them and we call and talk for hours and hours, and don’t have to worry about an increase in bill. And we still get the flat rate we pay that we currently pay on our cell phones.

I personally have had a cell phone for the last five years and I welcome it with open arms. The cell phone has been a life saver in reference to problems with vehicles. I’m able to not leave my car to call to get help, call my husband, my kids, on my way home have them to pick something up for me. It also helps me being in traffic where I can actually just kill time while driving. Well, of course being cautious as well, that has been a very big advantage and the cell phone is really something that is getting better and better. The services provided is a lot better and as we go along each, each year. I should say that the provider I currently have and their system has improved substantially with ability to call in a lot of different areas where we weren’t able to call before so I would have to say that the cell phone has been the greatest hit.

Being with couple of my friends we have gone to places and went to places with them and they had cell phone, and we would actually get stuck and would need to get some help. And one of my friends took out a telephone and was able to call from the location where we were at to get the help that was needed. And at that point I realized the necessity and importance of really having a cell phone incase of any emergency that you would not be able to have any, you know you use your cell phone versus going to a pay phone.

Those cell phones, when they first came out were just basically a large phone with a flip and it did not have much it um had a front flip, it didn’t have a whole lot versus the new phone right now. You can use new phones which are a small pocket phone, where you can put it into your pocket or in your purse, some of them have a camera, you can e-mail and it has a phone book, it has a calendar, you can do more various features today than the old ones ten years ago.

My cell phone I will have to say is more useful to me because that is the phone that I use throughout the day coming from work. Not so much while I am at work, but as I leave work I use it. When I am at home I hardly use my cell phone because I would have already made all my calls on the way home and communicated with the ones who I wanted to communicate with. So when I’m home I don’t really use my home phone so I would say that the cell phone has been very advantageous to me versus the home phone.

Yes, it’s hard for me to keep up with the cell phone because of all the text messages and the e-mailing and all the different technology that comes out regularly on a cell phone I really don’t quite understand I don’t use it all, I just use it for the basics. So I will say yes as cell phones get more advanced it will be more difficult for me for the new technology. On your opinion is there anyone that you know that knows more than you about your cell phone, like family members that you don’t even know? To be fairly honest and I am ashamed to say, my grandson knows a lot more about my cell phone than I do about myself personally. He shows me how there’s games phone rings you can play on the cell phone and other things you can do.

Interviewed by Andrew Kaison