From the Glass of Television to the Screen of Artificial Intelligence: An Autoethnographic Account of Technological Transformation within a Lifetime

In the literature on technological transformation, the process of digitalization is often examined through the technical development and chronological sequencing of technological tools. This study instead examines the perceptual and behavioral changes produced by technology in social life through an autoethnographic approach based on events I personally witnessed from my childhood and youth onward. The study addresses, through personal testimony, the initial forms of experiencing television as a mass communication medium in the home and public sphere during the final quarter of the twentieth century; the alternative viewing culture and commercial relationship created by video-cassette technology in coffeehouses; an unusual social response to a Honda motorcycle in a rural setting during the 1980s; and the new forms of content production emerging today through artificial intelligence. These experiences suggest that technological objects are not merely technical instruments. They can also become cultural elements that shape people's perceptions, everyday behaviors, forms of gathering, and relationships with technology. At the same time, because the study is grounded in personal experience, it does not claim statistical generalization. Rather, it seeks to illuminate how technological transformation can appear within individual memory and everyday life.