From the Wheel to the Internet

Wednesday, all ready! I've spent the better part of this day attempting to install the software for the digital camera my granddaughter received for her 8th birthday. Now, there are so many factors in that sentence that boggle my mind, it's just difficult to compute. Pardon the pun. Let's start with the obvious fact, this generation that is growing up now, will have no idea what life is like without all this technological gadgetry. I realize, since the beginning of man, each generation has had a techonological advancement of sorts. I would imagine the first "old timer" to see the grandson build a fire was just as impressed as I was to see microwave cuisine, probably actually, more so. And the guy that invented the wheel? Certainly the rocket scientist of his era. The century that began with horse drawn buggies and wood burning cook and heat stoves ended with the Internet in a major percentage of American homes and so much computerized power, that the turn of the century was a major issue of potential fear. That doesn't begin to address the telephone, radio, television, and all the rest of the "stuff" that most American households don't remember life without and can't imagine life any other way. I remember when a calculator was a major investment for high level math classes and business bookkeeping. Now, the solar power ones are impulse items at the various "dollar" stores. Although, we've seen so many dramatic additions to our culture in the past 50 years, we know that every generation advanced and made "improvements" or at least changes that were readily accepted as betterment. Now that I am approaching the half century mark, I find myself wondering just how many of these advancements were actually for the better. I don't have a television, so I don't have cable and I don't have DVD's, but I do have a computer with internet access. I have a telephone, but no caller ID or call waiting or any of the package promotions. I've tried the various things that come along from the phone company, but Caller ID was the big red flag that I didn't want, and from that point, I began to back away. The phone line is my internet access, and I manage to answer the phone without first identifying the caller, as I simply rely on voice recognition or phone manners. But back to an eight year old with a digital camera. I mean that's just one year past tattling about everything. So, as the technology becomes available for younger and younger kids, will they simply photograph and tape record each other and everyone around them? As these children incorporate hi-tech into childhood where does it go from there? And as I think of hi-tech childhood, what about the baby boomer's golden years? But then, I still remember my Great Grandmother talking about the days of horses and wagons as she made observation of man walking on the moon. I'm just sure every generation since Adam, and certainly since Noah has made the observation that there is no going back.

There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.