Have you seen the bit Jay Leno does where he is out on the street asking people if they know basic historical facts, such as who invented the light bulb or which president helped free the slaves?
The segment is fairly funny and very frightening at the same time. Most people Jay quizzes are clueless about the question of the day, but overwhelmingly, it is the younger people who seem to have a complete knowledge void about anything historical.
More and more often, I am forced to acknowledge that I am probably no longer a member of that group-the younger people. In this case that is OK.
However, in a recent casual conversation with a group of my peers (or so I thought), I found many folks just a few years younger than me have no memory whatsoever of rotary telephones. I could not believe it!
It makes me want to run to my grandmother’s house and pump her for any information about the past she can still dig up.
How much significant historical information is truly being lost in the frenzy of new technology and information overload? Does anyone really care?
More and more often, wireless news also is Internet news. The cyber wireless future is now and the two camps will use any means to cling to each other on the road into every living room, car, purse or pocket possible.
I know few people anymore who don’t have some relationship with the Internet-that information beast that changes the norms of society and culture on a daily basis. People seem to crave access to the Internet and in some cases, it is the only place to go for certain current data.
Our children won’t be able to fathom life before the technological world, just as some of us can’t imagine our parents burning their garbage in the backyard or waiting for the ice man to come.
Still, nuns in Scottish convents have shunned modern technology, approving use of the Internet, wireless phones, fax machines and television only when it pertains to an important religious event.
Another report out this week from The Conference Board of Heidrick & Struggles said in its CEO survey of top marketplace challenges for next year the Internet ranked ninth out of 15 concerns listed. “CEOs seem interested in the impact of the Internet only as it relates to tangible business outcomes.”
Even as we wait to see what “The Next Generation of the Internet” brings, people continue to be dragged into this age-only if religion or money require it.
It is too much to digest at once. It all makes me want to go some place quiet and just read a book … a really old one.
