How technological advancements since 1800 have affected time and space:

I call my grandmother once a week to talk to her and to keep her updated on my life. This week she told me about my great-great-grandfather. When he was 17 years old, he immigrated to America from Belgium by himself. His family was ensured of his safe arrival by a letter that took months to deliver. As I listened to the story my grandmother was telling me, I reflected on how much technology has changed since the 1800‘s. I realized that if I traveled to America from Belgium, my family would know of my safe arrival within hours.

Technology has advanced a considerable amount in the past 200 years. The story my grandmother told me reminded me of how technology affects the characters in Jane Austen’s Emma. The characters in Emma respond significantly different to technology then how society interacts with and views technology today. The technology available in the age in which Emma is set forces the characters to interact with time and space in a way remarkably different then how technology causes citizens of the 21st century to interact with time and space.

For Emma Woodhouse, a letter is the only correspondence readily available from people who live more then a few miles away from her home. Since the 1800’s, technology has altered the time it takes for people to communicate. In recent years, communication is virtually instant. I often find myself sending text messages to the people I love just to say, “Hello,” or to see how they are doing. The instantaneity behind communication in recent years is taken for granted; however, in Emma Woodhouse’s time, communication takes time, and a letter is cherished by its receiver and even by the entire society. Advancements in technology have modified communication so that it is virtually effortless, instant, and assumed.

In the 1800’s, a 16 mile journey took about half a day to complete; however, in 2011, a 16 mile journey can be about completed in 20 minutes. The technological advancements in the past 200 years have changed the how people interact with space. My family lives about 30 miles from the university I attend, and I have the opportunity of visiting my family about every other weekend. This is a luxury I rely on. Emma Woodhouse’s father sees his daughter Isabella, who lives 16 miles away in London, about once a year. Technological advancements have allowed for relationships to be maintained over great spaces.

While my great-great-grandfather was alive, he traveled in a horse and buggy when he was a child, traveled in a car in the middle of his life, and flew in an airplane to Florida when he was an elderly man. The technological advancements in my great-great-grandfather’s life were huge, and I am looking forward to the technological advancements in my lifetime. Technology is seemingly continuously changing, and the world my great-great-grandchildren will be living in 200 years from now is unfathomable to the people in my generation.

Austen, Jane. Emma. New York: Penguin. 1815. Print.