As a fellow of, either, late-middle-age or early-old-age I semi-vividly remember all your pre-internet observations.

While it’s fun to recall the past I don’t wish to go back.

In the past I had too many years of “hard drives”.

Some of the things projected in our youth still have to come to pass. By now we’re supposed to be on automated roadways or operating our own flying cars.

As amazed as I am over what amazes me I’m sure many more amazing things are yet to come.

And, like many of us “geezerly types”, I’ll be even more amazed.

I greatly enjoyed the retrospective,

Elmer

Good article.

Jake

My Dad was involved with cutting edge computer stuff in the 70s and 80s and had a car phone long before anyone else we knew (and note I said ‘car’ phone, not mobile); He died 21 years ago never having known most of the things you’ve mentioned! It’s my yard stick of how quickly technology has changed over the last 20 years.

Thanks for sharing.

Sometimes our kids seem to speak a different language. I know my 13 year old can talk and I only understand about 1 word in 5 half the time!

The Internet is a great tool but too many people get tied up in it and forget the offline world. We’ve bee introducing our kids to the library and are starting to get the elder two reading books (gasp). They think reading a book a month is good … I used to go through ten a week at their age!

They complain that there’s nothing on the 600+ channels on TV they want to watch and then look disbelieving when we tell them we only used to have 3 channels and kids TV was an hour an a half after school and that was it!

They can’t comprehend that we used to get up to change TV channels and that their mobile phones have more computing power than computers that used to take up acres of floor space.

I can remember that days when I used to talk to my friends. I’d walk over, knock on their door and we’d talk. Now talking to a friend involves text messaging, IM’ing or something on a Wii or PS3!

When you put it that way – things have changed a lot and perhaps not all for the better.

It’s a great post Martin and really made me think about how things have changed with the Internet revolution.

All the best to you

Jason

The world wasn’t simpler, it was simply we gave more thought about character, values and our place in the world. Some of us had real friends all over the world, not just blips on a screen that disguised the people behind the words who may or may not be who they say they are.

Our differences didn’t frighten us as much as our similarities made us feel safe. Our imaginations were jumpstarted by HG Wells and Gene Roddenberry to create things we couldn’t see, imagine the impossible becoming possible.

Thought provoking post.