If you’re my age, you will look around you now and see so many things that were never even thought of when you were younger, and if not inconceivable, then unbelievable seems inadequate.
Online shopping would never have been a ‘thing’ as my generation would never have trusted it, but through the likes of Amazon, Temu and Shien, just to name a few, there is an entirely different perspective ‘out there' now. We all do Internet banking now, don’t we? And it’s not proven to be as untrustworthy as we thought it would be. In fact, dare I say it, it’s a giant step forward. Look around you and see how many electric vehicles are on the roads; only a few years since Elon Musk’s Tesla took EVs from mobility scooters and golf carts to the world’s roads and highways. I even drive an EV now, and I love the very different, fun driving experience.
The Internet, though, has been the genesis, the how and why of so much we do, see and experience today, and to be honest, I still don’t understand how it works. However, I am eternally grateful for the development of PCs that has rid me of the frustrations of writing assignments and articles either by hand or at a typewriter, which was remarkably unforgiving of misspellings and layout errors. How much Tippex, a titanium dioxide correction fluid, did I use in those days? I’ll never know!
The Internet was always the ‘stuff of dreams’ that became a reality on the back of significant investment by the United States Defence ‘industry’ during the 1960s and 70s, with the integration of the wider scientific community through the National Science Foundation, a decade later. Several different versions of ‘closed’ networks achieved success. However, security concerns held back progress on what was originally known as the ‘Internetwork’ until 1974, when Vinton Cerf used the name ‘Internet’ when setting out operational protocols. The forerunners of today’s global public data networks subsequently reached half a million global subscribers, and the Internet has continued to evolve ever since, without a backward step.
Social media, selfies, telling the world everything you do, influencers, are so far removed from how individuals, societies, and global awareness have evolved in ways that we could never have believed, From the days of having ‘penpals’ in exotic places, and writing letters to family and friends, to sending postcards back home on the rare occasions we travelled, shaking off this need for privacy and discretion has been a ‘challenge’ to my generation. I still find it difficult to be relaxed for Facebook pics, though I am becoming more relaxed about some of its sharing elements. I do wonder sometimes if the younger generation needs to ‘share’ all they do, but hey, I’m told not to be so ‘old’ about it!
The growth of computers, especially the access to personal devices, was the stuff of comic books, and I recall buying my first ‘home computer’ in the early ‘80s, which utilised cassette storage and drives. However, the personal device marketplace was facilitated by the first microprocessors, invented by Italian American engineer Federico Faggin and Intel, in 1971. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak launched the Apple 1 in 1976, but it was the upgraded Apple 2, in 1977 that gave wings to personal computers, though, the launch of the Apple Mac, at halftime of the 1984 Superbowl, took the PC industry stratospheric, and mobile phones were to follow soon after, with 2G in 1991, 3G in 2001, 4G in 2009 and 5G in 2019.
And to conclude, taking us all the way from the sublime to the ridiculous... Vaping: Who would have ever thought we would see people sucking rocket fuel from plastic boxes? Not me! Glycol, glycerine and nicotine. What a cocktail of thinking, and among all the progress we can be proud of, this is a special, and not in a good way, kind of madness!
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