Technology yesterday, today, and tomorrow

Today I'd like to relate a conversation I recently had with my 8-year-old grandson Seth.

This fall, Seth got his first cell phone to use in case of emergencies. He's the youngest in his family and the only one still in elementary school. Both his parents work.
Seth came over to show me his new phone. It's green and very cool looking. He pointed out where my name was on the list of programmed telephone numbers.
Then he said, "Grandma, where's your phone."
I pointed to the telephone on an end table beside the loveseat. He's often used it to call home to say good night to his mother when he's slept over.
He stared at it a moment, and then he looked at me, then he looked back at the telephone.
Confused, he asked, "How do you text?"

My grandson is growing up in a world where cell phones and text messaging are normal, and my old telephone with its land line is outdated.

I wonder what the world will be like when he is my age.

During my lifetime, transistors were invented, so was colored television, stereo sound, and the computer chip. I watched eight-tract tapes come and go, cassette tapes almost vanish, and vinyl records become collector's items. VHS has almost been replaced by DVD, and now DVD is being edged out by Blu-ray.

In 1957 I stared at the night sky until I saw Sputnik creep across the stars. I was glued to the TV as the first men stepped onto the moon. I remember when computers were huge things only used by the government and large corporations. I watched the original Star Trek television series and was stunned by the special effects.

I was alive when the polio vaccine was developed, when the first heart transplant was performed, and when the World Health Organization announced the eradication of smallpox.

When I was little there were things called "gas wars." To steal each other's business, competing gas stations would lower the price of gasoline sometimes below $.20 a gallon, and while one attendant filled the tank, another one would wash your windows, check your oil, check the air pressure in your tires, and give the children in the car lollipops. Back then, candy bars cost a nickel, soft ice cream cones were a dime, and a hamburger was a quarter.

If I stop to think how drastically the world has changed, how far technology has come, how different daily life is now compared to my childhood, I feel like I must have grown up in a science fiction movie. When I try to imagine the world 50, 75, or 100 years from now, I can't. All I am sure of is that, if civilization doesn't do anything stupid to destroy itself, and if technology continues to develop at this rapid pace, the future will be strange and wondrous for those lucky enough to see it.