There’s no great thinking or wit behind this list, but it is fun for me to think about how things have changed as I prepare for what I’m going to say at my next high school reunion. (The class is usually foolish enough to let me get on the mic with some jokes and reminiscences.)
Smart phones have probably been the most influential innovation. Home computers with the internet made reference books, VCRs, DVDs and CDs obsolete. But smart phones have even made home computers seem obsolete. Each phone replaces your laptop, your landline, your book collection, your music collection, your camera, your maps. They also render pay phones and film developing outlets unnecessary.
Even TVs, newspapers and movie theaters have become unnecessary. I watch a ton of TV shows and films, and I read two major newspapers every day, but I never go to a movie theater, I haven’t bought a paper in at least a decade, and I don’t own a television!
The song said that God held the whole world in his hands.
Now you do.
The 62 years since I entered high school have certainly been a time of great change, but because we have been part of it and have experienced the change in real time, we probably don’t immediately fathom just how much 62 years worth of change amounts to. Take it back another 62 years to get perspective on how long that is. It was 1900. There were Americans in their thirties who had born into slavery. Many Civil War vets were only in their 50s. Three of my own great-grandparents, although only in their early forties, had been born as slaves (serfs) in the Russian Empire. They were not ethnic Russians, but there was no Poland at the time. There were no films to speak of, no radio, no TV, no supermarkets, very few electrified homes. The Wright Brothers had not yet risen even their modest but fateful ten feet above the ground. Few people had cars, and those few had no highways to drive them on.
Looking back from when I entered high school, those were ancient times. That’s how long 62 years is.
It’s no wonder that young people tend to ignore the thoughts of boomers. We are to them as irrelevant as the old handlebar-mustache-wearin’, horse-and-buggy-drivin’, vaudeville-watchin’ mofos were to us.
Specifically the iPhone and the iPad are the most influential devices, because they respectively made smartphones and tablets more common. Sure there were Blackberries and tablets/PDA’s, but they weren’t common until the iPhone and iPad made their debut. And then Android came around and the tech exploded.
It’s funny about Poland. It caused an argument amongst family members during a holiday. One was convinced a great grandparent was from Russia and another was convinced it was Poland. Neither of them was aware that Poland didn’t exist back then and thus neither realized they were both correct.
Of all my grandparents and great-grandparents, not one appears in the census documents as being born in Poland, although 7 of my 8 great-grandparents were ethnic Poles, and all eight were born in Europe. Of course that is because there was no Poland during the entire 19th century.
I can’t really separate smart phones from computers because they are nothing but small computers with built-in phones. Computers and worldwide internet access are the revolutionary things that changed the world. As a product, smart phones have definitely changed how society operates but they could never make other computers obsolete. They are convenient, but they are too damn small. People looked at computers a certain way at first, but now computers are in every shape and size and they are everywhere. That little chip in your credit card is a little computer. They are just being spread far and wide into everything. Now AI is going to change things in ways we can hardly imagine. Hopefully we won’t screw it up and it will lead to better things.
Well, smart phones are also cameras, recording devices and, less importantly, but still, portable radio and record players.
I agree there is a debate in economics and technology fields whether there really has been any major genuinely new (consumer) inventions since 1950.
The argument is that a person born in 1880 and transported to 1950 would be totally lost, but that a person born in 1950 and transported to now would soon figure things out.
The counter argument here though is what makes smart phones new is the ‘synergy’ of all these technologies in one.
Smartphones used to be able to pick up FM radio stations, but Apple killed that. Actually, I am not sure if iPhones were ever able to get FM radio, but when Apple killed the headphone jack, most of the Android flagships followed suit. Without being able to plug in headphones, there is no antenna for FM stations. I had downloaded an FM radio app onto my Galaxy S10+ and I was able to get FM stations. However, after checking to see if it worked, I never used the app again. That’s why I wasn’t too upset when Samsung killed the headphone jack.
Nope, sorry. I was only born in 1956, and am not from 1950, but I can assure you, DVD players and smart phones, to name just two, would be incomprehensible to people from 1950. The idea of software controls (that is, “clicking” on things on a screen instead of using a physical button, knob, or switch) would be utterly alien to them. They would understand the concept (DVD = recorded movie, smart phone = telephone plus a TON more) but operating them would be a non-starter. So would the idea of using a wireless “app” to pay for things. Frankly, I cannot use smartphones myself, except as a phone. They are too small, and there is no training or tutorial.
Heck, VCRs, which are now essentially a dead technology, was a genuinely new consumer invention. People have already forgotten how huge sales of them were, and how they changed the way TV was watched, and how a vast forest of video rental stores sprang up in their wake and have now vanished, leaving not a wrack behind. (Except for a Blockbuster sign on a tall pole in Philadelphia, at least as of 2019.)
No, you have to be young and unfamiliar with the past to buy that “nothing new since 1950” stuff. Improved recording technology, the replacement of vacuum tubes with solid-state devices, leading super-powerful computers and the development of cheap miniaturized tech of all kinds haschanged our world. Heck, just trying taking someone from 1950 to a “self-service” checkout station and see what happens.
Well, I didn’t say they wouldn’t be initially confused, what I said is ‘they’d soon figure things out.’ You can compare that to a person living in 1880 when there were no airplanes, no cars, no electricity in use! and all the things that electricity powers including computers. I think a person transported from 1880 to 1950 would think they were on a different planet.
VCRs were a new technology but there were some people who had projector reel players, including one of the murderers in Columbo.
I guess fashion shows like this were not a thing in your youth either 🙂
All the parts are on youtube.
That’s one of the greatest cultural differences between then and now. The internet doesn’t seem to have made people better informed, as originally hoped, but it certainly has given everyone a porn store at their fingertips. My dad wasn’t into Playboy or anything else in the “adult entertainment” area, so my only access to naked females was my mom’s National Geographic magazines, and of course there was nothing sexual about that. I never saw a topless woman in motion until I saw Romy Schneider in Boccaccio ’70, and I don’t remember when I first saw a woman naked below the waist. (That’s kind of an odd thing to forget, isn’t it?)
Yeah, the internet sadly hasn’t made people better informed…
These days, I’m hesitant to trust anyone who loudly declares themselves to be an ‘independent thinker,’ because it often means they “do research” and get their information from online conspiracy theorists, YouTube accounts full of rage-bait content, misinformation and straight up lies.
Anti-education and anti-science sentiments are on the rise in the world right now, and it’s very scary to me.
People foresaw that the internet would be the ultimate source of information. I don’t remember anyone predicting or warning us about the corollary – that it would therefore become the ultimate source of misinformation.
I guess the same is true of all breakthroughs. I can remember the talking heads saying that TV was the great class equalizer – that it would bring culture to people who could not normally afford it or even travel to it – Broadway plays, symphonies, sporting events, ballet, opera, history, travel, nature, coronations, debates … It did that, especially at first, until people realized that live Shakespeare, Chekhov and Eugene O’Neill attracted far fewer sponsors than Lucy and Queen for a Day. The ultimate source of entertainment soon became the ultimate source of lowbrow entertainment, as probably should have been obvious from the get-go, with all that highbrow and educational material relegated to PBS on the UHF bands. (Most people, including my family, had to wait until their old TVs went kaput before they could get channels 14 through 83, and even the new TVs came with a very imprecise UHF tuner that truly tested one’s patience.)
Smartphones are basically electronic Swiss army knives. However, while I can watch movies on my phone, I don’t. I have an 82″ TV in my living room and another in my bedroom. I’m retired and am home most of the time. I don’t even watch much YouTube on my phone. I have my computer plugged into my TV and use it to watch YouTube. I’ve actually been seriously considering upgrading to a larger TV. While I am not willing to spend $20,000 for a 115″ TV from TCL, Hisense has a much more reasonable 100″ micro LED TV for $3,000. I just need to find a good home for one of my current TVs. My sister asked her boyfriend if he could pick up the TV and bring it to her house. I am just waiting for an answer.
Scoop, if you don’t have a TV, do you watch all those films and TV shows on your phone? Or are you watching on a laptop or computer monitor?
When I really want to enjoy a film or show that belongs on the big screen, (or when I want to share it with my girlfriend), I use a laptop feeding into a large monitor. That said, I do that perhaps once per fortnight.
Games on phones don’t come close to what I am looking for. I need a full computer for that. Watching videos on phones is less pleasant than other options. I can do it, but I would way rather use a computer or tv.
Also, I had pegged you for a decade or so younger than you apparently actually are, so I found that interesting
Yes, true. If I played complex online games, I would need and want a more powerful computer, and I would constantly be upgrading both my computer and my internet connection, because you absolutely want to be faster than your opponents. I can get by with a ten-year-old laptop with an external monitor and a big keyboard (and no upgrades or updates), and I just access the internet with a basic business plan, but if I were serious about gaming, I’d be upgrading constantly and I’d be paying for a 5000mbps connection.
How often do you upgrade?