What has been altered by digitalization?

Dad- In general, all this new, digital stuff is pretty arbitrary. It's what the kids do now, we had our thing, now you have yours. I'm not saying I like it, I always think a kid should be out an active instead of in and idle. But, things have gotten better, like the technology in hospitals, in that people have instant access to old records and can transfer things instantly.

At the same time, things have become much worse. (We were talking about love here) When you love a girl now, and she rejects you, or you get dumped, or you break up, there's no real space between you to clear your head. Back in Ireland, when I fell out of a relationship, we could go our separate ways. No one had a phone so the only times we'd see each other was a hello here and there, so there was a way to get it out of your head, to cope. Now, they're always there. If not in person, then on the texting ,on the internet. You can never get away, never really clear you're head. It sucks.

Eileen- I see how texting and websurfing has done terrible things to kids' language. I mean, I teach comparative literature, so I get a lot of papers. You wouldn't imagine how many kids hand in papers they typed up on their phones in class, sometimes forgetting to not use shorthand messaging for words. I have read some papers with a couple of LOLs and U's. I can't imagine what it'll get like from here.