Where Is She?

My kids asked me where Alexa was. It was moved around and I hadn’t got to plugging it in. They actually missed her. Over time, they got used to her or enjoyed asker her to play “kids song” or “freeze dance”. I was surprised that they almost instantly noticed it was missing and asked about it.

Back in my day (Grandpa Simpson voice now…), when I was around their age, we had our Betamax and a color TV in the basement. Even for late 1980s it was vintage, with a cable remote control and buttons. I loved how those buttons clicked on for the different channels (1–13). There was the black and white TV as well that had the coax to antenna adapter at the back. Another one served as a monitor for a game console.

Everything was clunky but still seemed magical.

I’m not sure if that’s the case today for our devices. Will children see them as magical? For computers, maybe not. The form factor for these has stabilized. However, for newer devices like the Echo / Home / Portal — maybe these will be reminisced.