Just today my mother and I were discussing the ways in which we use some technologies that would have been unimaginable 20 years ago. Take for instance the telephone.
If you're of a certain age, you'll remember that in the not-too-distant past, there was no 2-way, 3-way calling or caller ID. If you called someone and they were on the phone, you'd get a busy signal and you'd simply have to wait until the line was free. How agonizing - especially when there was juicy gossip ;) My mother recalled that when she was young, her dad's best friend would call at the exact time that she was waiting on her boyfriend to call :) So, she'd have to wait until they finished their gossip-fest, which could have been at least an hour.
My, how things have changed. Today, actually talking on the phone is just one use for a phone. Try telling a young person today that they can only talk on their phone and they'd probably hit you with it (okay, maybe not, but you get my point). Today, you can check your email, surf the Web, text, take pictures and make videos from a phone. While I pride myself on staying abreast of the latest technologies, I continue to be in awe of how quickly technology is changing some of our everyday activities.
Of course, in the not-too-distant future, we'll probably have some sort of embedded chip in our bodies and won't even need a handheld device for all of the phone-related activities listed above. But until that time, I reckon we'll continue to be amazed at how the simplest of technologies can be life-changing.
