Technology post script

After writing the post this morning about television and other technology (see below), I went for a walk with my five-year-old daughter. We walked past a phone company. Outside, in front of the building, Molly puzzled at a piece of archaic technology standing at the entrance: a phone booth. “What is it for?” she wondered.

Molly has recently learned how to dial her grandmother’s cell phone number and she delights in talking on the phone. But this thing didn’t look like anything she knew about.

“It’s called a payphone,” I told her. I explained how you put in two quarters and push the buttons and then it calls someone.

“Can we do it?” she asked with all the enthusiasm of a kid investigating a new game.

I didn’t have time to stop and make the call; someone was waiting for me. I would have offered for Molly to use my cell phone to make her call, but that was hardly the point.