[canoebuilder]

I too think it is interesting to look back in time using the generation metric. Also interesting to think about a generation still alive, those born in the 1920s and 30s and the huge changes in the state of the world seen in those lifetimes alone, and what that may portend for younger generations.

[saalweachter]

Those born in the 20's & 30's are already in the "music on demand" generation, who grew up after the point at which you could listen to your favorite artists play your favorite songs [on record], whenever you want, or turn on a radio and hear new music any time you wanted to.

[canoebuilder]

That’s an interesting point of reference. I have thought about what a big change it was to go from a sheet music and live performance only world to a world with audio recordings.

You’ve identified the early electromagnetic signals era, then think about the huge expansion in bandwidth those signals have undergone. From a handful of local radio stations and a finite number of grooved vinyl(or whatever medium) at your local shops. To a virtually infinite arrangement of pixels on your screen, waveforms coming out of your speakers. A few taps on your local signal processor and you can have virtually anything delivered to your door, or undertake any number of your other day to day affairs.

[DrScientist]

It's interesting to speculate whether the rate of change speeding up or slowing down...

For example, housing and transport - the two major physically obvious measures - are perhaps not changing that much these days.

On the other hand, the internet and mobile connectivity have transformed the way people live their lives, without such an obvious physical manifestation.

[saalweachter]

Technology is a lot like science.

In science, new theories don't always invalidate the old -- Newton's Laws are still useful and used and valid, within a certain range of conditions, they're just incomplete the situations where relativity comes into play.

In technology, the problems the old technologies were solving don't necessarily go away as we invent new technology, so new technology solving the same problems as the old will often be quite similar.

I've got a house built in the 1920s. The framing is all 16 inch on center, with studs milled to the 1.5 x 3.5 dimensions used by modern 2 by 4's. It uses sheetrock for all of the interior walls, although it was new enough at the time that the sheets have printed instructions on the reverse to tell you how to hang it. But the walls are all uninsulated; it originally had a coal furnace in the basement and you would just throw more coal in if it wasn't warm enough, although that was upgraded to a oil burner & baseboard system that burns an absurd amount of oil instead of coal. Besides leaking a lot of heat, the lack of any sort of moisture barrier means that the house is dry as a desert in the winter. It has electricity, but the older circuits are all ungrounded, with the lights wired before the switches instead of after, and while it has a modern panel with circuit breakers, instead of the original fuse box, they're just circuit breakers and not arc-fault interrupters or combined arc-fault & GFCI.

The general shape of the modern house and the 1920's house is quite similar, because the problem they are trying to solve hasn't changed much, but the technology they use has continued to change the solution in small ways that are very important for efficiency and safety.

[DrScientist]

Sure - new houses/cars are more efficient - the technology is constantly being improved.

But a car from 40 years ago is basically the same ( in terms of how it's used ) as today, even electrification, in the end, won't change things much in terms of how people live their lives.

Modern mobile phones on the other hand ( say starting around 2007 ) have transformed how people live their lives over the last decade or so - however I suspect the next decade or so will be pretty much more of the same in that regard - ie the change has happened very quickly and we are already into the slow evolutionary phase.

What's interesting about the impact of mobile internet devices, is that impact isn't so visible in photographs - yet it is a profound change.

Makes you think what changes we might have overlooked in the past.

[saalweachter]

But again -- the problem cars were solving haven't gone away. We still need a way to get 1-to-N people and cargo from point A to point B.

Improvements in cars over the last forty years: anti-lock brakes and airbags are now standard. Backup cameras are now standard. Cars can be fully electric now, and there is coast-to-coast charging infrastructure.

The biggest change in my use of a car -- besides being able to charge it at home and not care about the price of gas -- comes from the team-up between cars and mobile phones.

I no longer care about directions. My friends don't need to tell me about the red barn or the corner where the big tree used to be when I want to go visit them. I don't need to call AAA and request a map with directions to the antique mall in Binghamton. I don't need to backtrack to try figure out why I'm now in the wrong state.

I just sit down in my car, it pairs with the phone in my pocket, and I say "directions to the Papa John's on Plank Street", and turn by turn directions pop up on the car's display. If I'm driving around somewhere, take a wrong turn and get lost, the directions I'm following will update or I can request new directions home.

Sure, it might be the cell phone that enables it, but it makes a huge difference in how I use a car versus 40 (well, 10-20) years ago.

[DrScientist]

Err I think you made my point.

What's changed your life is the internet connected device in your pocket.

However that change is more visible in social history type records than simple lists of technologies etc.