Different generations can’t understand each other when it comes to technology.
When older professors discuss the joys of computer programming on punched cards, I nod periodically and feign interest, but secretly send texts under the table.
Soon enough, however, it will be us spouting technological trivialities on the next generation’s deaf ears. In fact, it’s already happening to me. A friend asked me recently if I knew about 8-tracks, and I replied in the affirmative: “Yes, of course, apparently they were quite useless because they jammed all the time.” It turned out she was referring to the internet radio site, 8tracks.com, not the obsolete sound recording technology I assumed we were discussing.
While few will feel regret as 8-tracks fade from memory, there are a number of much loved gadgets, revolutionary in their day, which will never be known by future generations. The rise of cell phones is bringing about the fall of wrist watches, themselves responsible for shoving pocket watches off the world stage. Future generations may wonder: What is that thing the white rabbit keeps looking at? Why would Dumbledore have to wind his cell phone?
Just as we smile bemusedly at the mention of floppy discs, tomorrow’s youth will return blank stares at references to encyclopedia sets. Think back to your first memory of reading: it probably involves a book that was used, shared, or gifted. E-books could spell the end of book exchanges between travellers in hostels, lending a favourite book to someone you know will appreciate it, and getting the feel of where a book has been by touching its pages.
Photography is an even sharper example of the shift from hard copy to digital. It is not uncommon to see seven-year-olds toting around iPhones and taking pictures at arm’s length. How many will grow up without the memory of looking through a viewfinder, or winding film? Will any of them experience the magic of an image suddenly materializing out of nothing on a blank page in a dark room, or the anticipation of taking in a completed roll to be developed, and the surprise at getting the photos back?
The benefits of new, innovative technologies are obvious and numerous; but respect is owed to the various successes and failures along the way. Those intermediaries made the improved, more efficient versions of today possible.
In the words of Terry Pratchett, author of Discworld: “It is important that we know where we come from, because if you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going wrong.”
