It
isn’t that unusual to make attempts at separating generations.
It’s done with themes such as music and entertainment. It’s done
with a variety of measures for the conveniences of the world.
It’s done, we all understand it’s done, and that the conversation
is likely to end with someone asking someone else to get off their
lawn.
“When
I was your age, I walked to school. Seventeen miles in the snow,
uphill, both ways.”
Yes.
Yes. I know. Cliché. Actually, not even one hundred words
into this thing, and we’ve got cliches. Plural.
Probably
seems far too easy when there are phone booths I could make fun
of, or transistor radios to build stories upon. But I’m only looking
to scratch the surface a bit and get your mind moving. I’m not
actually looking to exploit the ideas from perspectives of showing
better or worse, convenience or hardship.
Let’s
meander back to the late 1980s and early 1990s. There are such
things as cellphones and email addresses, but not that the general
masses are even aware of (never mind using). We’re still a few
years away from the majority of people hearing the words windows
and computers in a way that associate the two as belonging together.
The world wide web is a world wide never heard of it.
We
can make the fun of the good old days quite clear with a single
example. Telephones. The majority of people made calls from their
kitchen, because the house only had one landline phone. That phone
had a cord. And, your service meant that there were charges for
long-distance calls that could look like a car payment if you
weren’t careful.
The
biggest secret about the good old days that no one talks about,
however, is that we didn’t know they were the good old days. They
were just the days. Now was now, not a future past.
We
might joke about looking back and laughing. The whole comedy is
tragedy with time kind of idea. We rarely—read: never—said something
like: “In thirty years, we’ll look back at this and wonder what
it would have been like if we had our technology from the future
to use today.”
We
didn’t.
Anyone
who says we did is lying. Because the reality was simple: Things
didn’t advance that quickly. Most of it was random, every day,
normal stuff.
An
email arrived the other day for me. Someone I used to do volunteer
work with was thinking about me, came across some information
that led him to my website, and he wondered if it really was me.
He reached out and we connected for the first time in more than
thirty years.
The
trick as it applies here? What if something like the internet—and
we can give a nod toward social media platforms—had existed back
then? Quite likely, we never would have lost contact with each
other. Thirty years wouldn’t have passed between conversations.
(Or, at least thirty years wouldn’t have passed between likes
and shares.)
Mind
you, I know far too many of the stories about finding high school
classmates and folks from the old neighborhood on Facebook. I’m
not talking about becoming digital friends with people where somewhere
between sixty and eighty percent of the folks sending you a request
get a reaction from you roughly equivalent to disappointment because
you had thought you’d never have to deal with that word-I-won’t-type-here
again. (But find you they did. Don’t forget to like and follow.)
So,
let’s get to the basics.
I
am talking about the people that moved across the country. People
you met at college or at your job. Folks you got along with, and
genuinely enjoyed their company. Just, you know, not enough to
skip that month’s rent to talk to them on the phone, or sit and
invest twenty minutes to write a letter. You promise to stay in
touch, neither of you do, and life moves on.
What
if text messages and emails and social media existed for the majority
of the population decades ago? Would your inner circle of contacts
be significantly different?
When
I was growing up, the stories were told that most people never
moved more than ten miles from where they grew up. I have enough
friends from my good old days to know that if you care to extend
that ten miles to fifteen or twenty, the thought might very well
remain true.
But
I’ve lived in multiple places hundreds of miles away from where
I grew up. My sisters have moved further away from that address
than I have. And while I find myself back there a few times each
year, I don’t feel any special attachment that creates a desire
to permanently return.
Still…
From
time to time, I do think about so many of the people that I felt
I had a good, close relationship with, and I wonder where they
might be today. We lost contact. Limited by the technology of
our times, so to speak.
Life
has picked up speed in so many ways. Changes far more significant
than a cordless phone. Methods for tracking and messaging that,
had they been available, might create sizable additions to my
current list for holiday cards. (And might create scenarios with
other requests were never accepted. (Don’t make that face, because
you know it’s true for you as well.))
Imagine,
for a moment, that in thirty years it is very likely we’ll be
feeling nostalgic about the limitations we’re facing today. What’s
holding us back now that won’t soon? And why is it taking so long
to arrive?