Living in a Technological Age

The sixty three year old grandfather sits in his comfortable armchair as he turns on the television set to watch the evening news. Ivailo Ivanov is currently living in a quiet house in Glendale California. He was born in a very busy neighborhood in Sofia called Hipodruma. Ivailo spent much of his life in Bulgaria during a Communist regime which he thought was a great time for his country. In a city full of opportunity he began pursuing a career as an engineer at a very early age. Due to his career choice Ivailo was able to use many types of cell phones during his time in the field. Now that part of his life is long behind him and he is happily living in retirement. Ivailo looks up at the television set but the news do no interest him and in his mind he begins to remember his years as a young man …

My name is Ivailo Ivanov. I was born in 1944 Bulgaria in the beautiful city of Sofia that’s right near the end of World War II. During the same year the government in Bulgaria changed and the Communist party rose to power. During the Communism there was a lot of building going on … when we were kids the neighborhood was growing really fast. Roads were being reconstructed and it just kept getting better and better. I’m not exactly sure where cell phones first appeared but in Europe they appeared …. especially in Bulgaria they began to appear around 1992 -93. In the United States they probably came around earlier. Back then it was a big thing, it was like a big revolution in the area of communication because it…  umm really made things easier for people who were involved in business and marketing and people who had important deals to make because the fast communication played a very important role in this area. Back then of course the prices were much different … a cell phone back then would probably cost about five or six times as much as it would now and they did not have nearly as many functions … they were just phones with a black and white screen and the connection was not very good…you could not hear very well, but despite all that they were devices that took the world in a whole new direction

Whenever I am at home I prefer using my home phone because it is more comfortable, the device is much bigger and it is much easier to speak into, but when I am outside of my house I prefer to use a cell phone. In Bulgaria the phones are a lot like in the earlier years , with a cord. Only the service providers have changed. Of course there is a very big change in the quality of the connection and in the design of the devices. Now almost everywhere people use wireless phones … without a cord , which makes talking on the phone much easier for most people because there is no restriction as to where you can go .  Before you had to go to the phone and pick it up and stay there during the entire conversation, while now you can sit in front of your television set and talk. Also the design has completely changed. 20 years ago…. no 15 the design was completely different , the cell phones were like bricks and you could not carry them around in your pocket they had special cases which you had put on your belt because they were too big to be carried any where else They did not have umm… as many options and functions as the cell phones today have. The connection was horrible… many times you had to dial the number of the person you wanted to reach twice or three times just to establish a connection and eventually over the years many of these things began to change … the size of the cell phones began to get smaller the batteries also were reduced which was very important. Batteries were also made to last longer and recharge much faster… and like that year after year we eventually get today’s small cell phones with color screens and batteries that last for weeks

I have a cell phone but I am not particularly happy with it. I don’t like the service, with this phone I don’t have reception in many places. There is a big difference in service providers, first of all in Europe the way things work is totally different. In all of Europe they use the GSM system which is rated the best one while in America they still have not perfected it. In Europe you don’t have to pay for plans and monthly taxes you just pay for however much you talk. Cell phones are very widespread, they are a part of the person nowadays …. meaning that without a cell phone a person cannot communicate with others as effectively. Now they are something that a person cannot part with. In almost every job I have worked I have found use of the cell phone. I had a cell phone with me at all times and it really made things much easier…. I was an engineer and was often the head of big construction projects which made it very easy to talk to the workers

about dividing all the jobs and goals for the month. This made work go much smoother than before. Of course there are negative effects of cell phones one of which is that you can be found anywhere. Another negative effect of the cell phone …which I think they took care of …. Was a couple years back they said in the papers that the antenna of the cell phone released radioactive rays which are very dangerous for people. They made protectors for the antennas to get rid of this negative effect, now the cell phones are harmless. Talking while driving is also a very bad effect that the cell phone has on our daily lives. That is a problem that needs to be taken care of very fast because there are people that drive on the freeways while talking on the phone and many times they can’t tell if they are driving at a speed faster or slower that the speed limit and at this point they begin to endanger themselves and the drivers around them. In many European countries it is illegal to talk on the phone while driving. Almost all people especially in America own cell phones and I would tell them use them correctly and to be thankful for the creation of such a revolutionary device.