If someone had told me, when I was a kid in the ’70’s, that when I grew up I’d be able to type a message into a machine, press a button, and someone clear across the world could read and respond to that message within seconds, I would have been astonished. I wouldn’t have been able to wait to grow up!
If they’d told me we would have tiny telephones that we could carry in our pockets and talk on just about anywhere, especially using tiny wireless earpieces that would allow us to have both hands free to drive or do whatever, I wouldn’t have even been able to imagine it. Seriously, I remember when I bought a 25 or 30 foot phone cord, when I was in my late teens, that allowed me to walk around with the phone in my hand (hands; the receiver in one and the base in the other) and not be forced to sit in one spot to talk. I thought that was the ultimate in freedom!
I remember “taping” Saturday Night Live with my best friend, back in the late ’70’s. We taped the audio with our little portable cassette players (placed on a chair, in front of the TV speaker) and listened to the skits over and over again all week, recalling the visual in our minds. We’d heard about something called a Betamax, that allowed a person to record TV shows and watch them later, and we were in awe. We didn’t actually know anyone who had one, but that was what we would buy if we were rich, for sure!
My family and I used to go to Disney World when I was a kid, and I remember being particularly amazed by the Carousel of Progress‘ future predictions. It showed a woman sitting in front of her TV, actually buying things over the telephone when they appreared on the screen! When Home Shopping first caught on, I remember telling my friends that I’d seen that at Disney. There was also a teenaged girl in her bedroom, watching music videos while she talked on her phone! Pre-MTV! Who knew? Walt Disney did, apparently.
If someone had shown me a picture of a laptop computer, especially one of those little netbooks, and told me they could do things that those huge computers (the kind with all sorts of buttons and lights and reel-to-reel tape things; the computers that spit out cards with holes in them) couldn’t do, I’d have said, “Nuh-uh!”
And all this has inspired me to make a list of Fifteen Phrases That, If I’d Heard Them When I Was A Kid, Would Have Made Me Say Huuuhhhh? So, here is that list:
1. ”Google me”
2. ”Call me on my cell”
3. ”I’ll email you from my laptop”
4. ”I need new batteries for my mouse”
5. ”I’m talking to you on my bluetooth”
6. ”I.M. me”
7. ”Text me”
8. ”Virtual reality”
9. ”TiVo the show and watch it later”
10. “What’s in your Netflix queue?”
12. “It got caught in my spam filter”
13. “What kind of anti-virus do you have?”
14. “Do they have free WiFi at that coffee shop?”
15. “I need to buy some new memory”
