I was reading an article that mentioned a time before Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, etc… and it got me thinking… just about all those times my parents would say something like “when we were kids we didn’t have these fancy phones, we had to get up to change the channel on the tv” and other stuff like that, that we’ve all heard. If you were like me, a kid who didn’t quite understand what they were even acknowledging, you prolly said “yeah cool story brah” and continued fingerblasting a text on your indestructible flip phone…
But now after almost 3 decades on this planet, I get what they were saying… after seeing how much things have changed and how far technology has advanced, it truly is insane to ponder on..
Its wild to think there’s a generation below you who have no idea what life was like before all this, hence why its so easy for young people to take things for granted, its all they’ve known.
We Never Truly Appreciate How Well We Have It
It easy to take things for granted in the moment, its only after we lose something, or see it change in a drastic way, that we gain the opportunity to reflect on what once was. This is true for all age groups, but older people have obviously experienced more change than younger people, so they are more aware of such things.
I often wonder if people truly appreciate how well we have things, this is single handedly the best time to be alive, and that will continue to be true short of a nuclear war or global conflict etc., you get my point. I don’t think people do, and again I don’t blame them, its easy to overlook these things we have grown so accustomed to.
Take Google for example. Google started as a simple search engine, basically there to help you get to others content, the results page was ONLY text links, a list of about 10 or so… look at Google today, a mega tech company that has evolved far beyond a search engine… google is an insanely powerful platform that I’m willing to bet 90% of internet users use, even if they don’t know it. Like, lets just appreciate(even if you don’t like them or their policies) how big of a influence Google has on the internet as a whole, they became the most popular search engine and pretty much got to become dictators in a lot of the web standards that were established, crazy to think about, but Google has become so engrained into our lives I don’t think people do think about it…
Google has search result modules now that display a variety of content in a variety of ways, you dam near don’t even have to leave the google search result page anymore to get what your looking for.
Google also has the events tab, which is an amazing tool to find out about events all in one place.
They have Google Finance which is an incredibly nice tool/dashboard.
They got flights, books, shopping, maps, images, videos, news, dev platforms, learning platforms, advertising, and so much more its ridiculous.
Google is just one of many examples…
Look at Facebook in 2004, a better but some how cheap looking knock-off of the myspace UI.
Now of course Facebook is Meta and they own quite a few social media networks, most notably Instagram. Meta has become much more than just a place for friends to stay connected, they are a streaming service, they create tv scripted quality content, developing games and their own metaverse, coding A.I, News Module, Marketplace, Groups, Fundraising, Events, Groups, Ads, Health initiatives, literally all sorts of shit. Like Google, they are a Mega Tech Super Power.
This is pretty much the story or pattern for most of these successful tech companies. You can have your feelings about them, their founders, and/or their policies, or the amount of influence these platforms hold over our society (i certainly do) but you can also appreciate the Modern Marvel of it all and acknowledge the immense benefits it has brought humanity, everything good comes with bad, and vice versa.
Super Computer’s In Our Pockets
The smart phone is a wild one… I don’t even know why we call if a phone.. Why? Cuz it can make a call? Hell a computer can make a call but we don’t call that a phone. Sure, back in the day of flip phones, now that was a phone, simple call and message. This shit we got now, this shit is a handheld Super Computer w/ direct access to the world thru your fingertips featuring a built in HD Super 1MIL MegaPixel Hollywood Movie Camera that can also make a phone call, shit aint no phone. If your like me, you spend 0.0001% of your total time on your phone, on a straight old fashion phone call, but to be fair im a big texter lol.
But yeah its very interesting to see how much development is going into the cameras and those related features, there are like $3000 Sony phones you can buy that you could film a movie on, I wouldn’t even want to use that as a phone, i probably wouldn’t. I wouldn’t put it in my pocket to get scratched that’s for sure, i would need a dam carrying case for my phone lol. Eventually it will be common that all phones have 360 degree cameras. Hell what we have now will look like childs play compared to what personal devices will look like in a few decades, shit could be some buzz lightyear hologram wrist bracelet thingy mcbob type stuff.
Do you think smart phones could ever replace DSLRs and bigger traditional cameras?
We have already seen phone photography/videography emerge as their own categories but also used heavily in all categories of mainstream. You see ads filmed on phones and can’t even tell.. but I don’t think so, I think they’re will always be enthusiast who love vintage tech and cameras, hell there’s still people who do the old fashion darkroom shit, which I did in high school and it was actually pretty fucking cool to experiment with lol, but I always got mad if i fucked up a print.
AND EVERYTHING ELSE!
I focused on a search engine and a social network, I could sit here all day and list off every industry that exists and how that industry has seen massive advancements thanks to technology, look at finance and the rise of the average joe day trader, same thing with sports betting/other gambling. Look at the health sector, that’s a huge one and we cant even begin to touch on the surface of all that lol. There’s so much connectivity, integration, power, and money that goes into this digital infrastructure of the ecosystem we have created.
Gratitude is a Gift
I’m just saying man, stop and smell the roses once in a while and really look around and appreciate what you have. You have no clue how often I think about and how grateful I am for the fact that we can just go down and turn the oven on and in 20 min have some tasty pizza rolls, some water right out the fridge vs. having to go out and hunt down a wild boar, skin it, build a fire, and let it cook while I make a trip down to the river for some water that I also have to cook before enjoying, only to come back and find a bear ate my kill lol. I think about it all the time.
Gratitude can change your whole perspective and life, it can change you from a negative nelly who only complains, to someone who can actually be positive and happy about things. It makes you more empathetic as well.
sidebar: Don’t Get the grateful/positive mindset twisted
Being positive and grateful doesn’t mean you don’t ever get to be negative, or voice your disagreements, grievances, or concerns about something. Its just about being aware of it all.
Take the incident where Casey Neistat’s car got broken into and he was rightfully upset about it. Seth Rogen comes in and pretty much calls him a baby and to get over it cuz that’s just part of big city living.
Now, do we need to be so grateful and appreciative that we let people take advantage of us and be okay with it?.. let people break into our cars, take a fat shit in the back seat and thank them for it? No absolutely not, that’s a ridiculous mindset. What Seth Rogen displayed in those tweet threads was pure absurdity.
Do not be gaslit into this mentality when you are justifiably upset.
I saw Seth do it, and I’m seeing a lot of liberals doing it now that Biden is proving to be an incapable weak president. They are making posts about how you shouldn’t complain about gas prices, or the economy, or any of Biden’s short-comings, because you have a warm bed and know where your next meal is coming from when others don’t.
There’s truth there, but it comes off as totally disingenuous and politically motivated coming from people who spent the last few years screaming into the sky over everything bad orange man did. In fact I saw people tell liberals “we have it good” and they would say “just because things are good doesn’t mean they cant be better”, but now apparently when things are bad you just have to be glad they aren’t worse? Interesting.
Life Before All of This
I know some people aren’t in as heavy into the tech stuff as others, some are not appreciative of what tech has done to society at all and actually despise it. No privacy, kids sitting on screens, acting a fool public pranking and shaking their butts and whatever other complaints they have, they remember a time where people were more connected not devices..
I’m kind of stuck in the middle, I agree with that stuff somewhat and I love nd miss the old days before everything was smart and connected, there was like a lord of the rings feel to those times. You would go out on a crazy adventure with your friends and no one would know where yall where at and we weren’t doing shit for the gram and all this nonsense, just making memories…
BUT i love technology and I also wish we had this shit when we were growin up, so we could have captured some of those memories, we would have insane videos, but I guess that’s what give those times that mystical allure lol. I hope the younger generation appreciates that, they will when they are older, sure some of the videos will be cringe, but they will even be glad they have those ones lol. You see more and more crazy clips everyday, its cuz mfers are out here capturing the culture for the culture, that’s a positive, you get great moments like a monkey throwin poop on grandma lol. I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives, we should embrace the advancement. Like GaryVee always says, “Social Media hasnt changed us, its exposed us”.
Setting Ourselves Up To Fail?
Our major reliance on tech has its downsides though, we have had it so good for so long. Its made us weak and entitled. The majority of us wouldn’t last a second if all this shit was taken away from us. When twitter goes down people lose their shit, when the register goes down the clerk can’t count your change, etc…All it takes is one big blast from the sun to hit us with an EMP, if the lights went out, it would be chaos, it would be like signal of the collapse of society(There’s a show called Revolution about this that’s pretty dope).. I can see why so many people are for a big intrusive government, they need someone to take care of them, but I digress lol.
Endless Possibilites
We will end this on a thinking exercise, just think of all you can do today thanks to technology and how the majority of it didn’t exist just 20 years ago… think of what the next 20 years will bring… its going to be a wild ride, buckle in, we’re gonna see some crazy shit….\
