Do you think you are living in a different world than say 30years ago?

Question

When I look at the technology of today and compare it to my first job I am amazed. I clearly remember doing wages for some 100 employees by hand/typing letters with carbon paper etc., and today I wonder how it all happened.

Answer 1

I clearly remember a Japanese friend at our pistol club in Manchester bringing the first (Sharp) calculator into the club. Everyone was amazed at what it could do!. It could Add,multiply,divide, etc. the decimal point had to be moved manually!. No scientific functions whatsoever!!. However, the biggest change in my life by far(and everyone elses), is the amount and speed of Asians now taking over our beloved country.

Answer 2

You and I must be of a similar age! When I was doing A levels at school, computers were just starting to come in - I'd never used one before and was terrified of breaking them! I also wonder about mobile phones - how did we manage to arrange social events without them? Technology has moved so fast but I'm glad it's all got a bit more 'user-friendly' now - to the extent where my pensioner Mum can design and update her own website! So there's hope for us yet!

Answer 3

for sure.. technology has changed the way we live.. dont know how we survived without cell phones all those years.. when I was young.. we only had 1 TV and 3 stations on the air and we had to put up a super high antennae to recieve those 3 channels and if the president was speaking. your night was ruined because he would be on all 3 stations..but things were better in other ways. we had family time at the table wher we actually talked to each other in long conversations too..all work progects got less laborous too....

Answer 4

Yes, indeed. The workplace of today is very different. The employees seem to be younger and younger, and smarter! So many of them work from home, and when they do spend their required hours in the office they are tapping away at the computer! LOL.
SuzieQ - twice retired.

Answer 5

Well ofcoarse 30 years ago I didn't have a cellphone,computer,not even a cordless phone.I had sex without condomms freely with whoever I wanted(no string)I think the world was a happier place then,but ofcoarse then I was only 23 lol

Answer 6

Yeah! I started using the internet when I was 14. There is so much stuff you can do on the web easily, that people USED to do WITHOUT it! Without COMPUTERS, even! For example:

- writing any lengthy document

- finding an uncommon book

- finding anything that isn't sold locally

- searching for scholarships

- figuring out how to deal with a legal issue, like how to do taxes, what the zoning laws are, who to contact if you want to register to vote, etc.

- spellcheck.

- researching, or even just finding out information on something you're curious about (I know there are libraries, but it's just not as easy. Remember about searchable card catalogs too-- MUCH more useful!)

- communicating with people in other countries

- communicating with people in other languages (think BabelFish-- shoddy, but helps you out in a stretch; and online dictionaries can be more helpful than paper; and online grammar guides are easy to find; also note that computers can display and allow you to type in other alphabets)

- getting in contact with people and ideas much different from our own.

And there are new things we can do, like:

- auction off your items that would have been difficult to sell otherwise

- buy crazy things from your home and get them the next day

- watch videos for free, especially new entertainment like you find on YouTube (such as the video of kids mixing Pepsi with Mentos)

- allowing people with similar interests to communicate with each other regardless of location: For example, forums.

- INVALUABLE help for the disabled: IP relay for the deaf and mute; online media to assist in learning Sign Language; computers that can read any text to a blind person; computers that can speak the words a mute person types; not to mention computers adapted to allow people with other disabilities to read, communicate, learn, and interact on the internet when they otherwise would have been confined to a hospital bed with a TV.

- and, once again, getting in contact with people and ideas much different from our own.


This is very exciting-- I spent most of my childhood with only an atari that played simple games-- and then at 14, the internet came into my home, and six years later, I can't live without it. It's so amazing how much has changed. It's very exciting. I'm just at the edge where I take it for granted, but then I can say, "wait, it wasn't always like this! This is new and amazing!"

Did you know, by the way, that the MAJORITY of people in the USA do NOT use the internet, do NOT have an e-mail address, and do NOT have functional knowledge of these things? I worry that the world will leave them behind-- for example, my college has computerized so much of its information that a student NEEDS to go online to know what's going on with paperwork, classes, etc.

People who use the internet forget about the people that don't, and try to build a world that assumes everyone knows the trendiest dot-com and the most popular auction site.

Answer 7

Well its the same world, we haven't moved.

but I see where you are coming from. It would be a sad world if things didn't progress. Imagine if Maggie Thatcher was still PM and that bill in Parliament introduced in the 1970's to ban computers had passed.

Answer 8

It happens all the time- One minute no-one was flying, next minute we were up in the air. In the UK horses were used to deliver coal, milk, bread, now they are not. It's the speed of change which is surpising today, perhaps?

Answer 9

yep
www came in 1994 to public use
IBM launched first home PC 26 years ago
CRDI came about 30 years ago in Diesel engines
Men went to moon in 1969
Copier came about same time
Digital photography is about same age
Color TV also
dont we c a difference

Answer 10

NO it is defiantly the same world. it has just changed.
give it a few years until space travel takes off, then you may get a different answer.