The famous words of Bob Dylan perfectly describe the world we live in as it learns to adapt and adjust to the massive changes that are brought upon it by advancements in technology. Our lives are constantly changing, and every day new forms of software and hardware are introduced in ways to make our lives easier and more focused. There’s an app for everything these days, and every real-life action has its own online counterpart. With the world forced to adjust due to a pandemic, we are finding new ways to continue to operate our businesses and shift even faster to an all-digital world.
Back in 2010, our founder and president, Mark Canes, wrote a blog post about how the newly introduced iPod Nano featured a camera and video capabilities, and that we should be prepared for what seems like a never-ending onslaught of people sharing every moment of their daily lives. That was 2010, and in 2020 it almost seems strange if you aren’t posting even the most private aspects of your life online. What a difference 10 years make.
(Image: apple-history.com)
If we look 10 years before that, the year 2000, just coming off the Y2K scare, we have a population that is unfamiliar with technology and the internet as a whole. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, and no YouTube. How did we survive without YouTube and Netflix? This was a time when Blockbuster thrived, when Amazon wasn’t the main supplier of, well, everything. Apple's iMac seems completely archaic compared to their latest iMac release. That was 20 years ago, but with how fast things change and how much technology improves, that seems like a lifetime ago.
(Image: http://www.designandtech.net/)
With shows like Stranger Things introducing a large percentage of people to what the 80s looked like, we get an even crazier view of the world before tech. Kids on bikes, people hanging at the mall all day, people going to the drive-in. When you really think about it, the 80s weren’t that long ago at all, but 1980 was 40 years ago. Forty years. We live in a completely different world than the world of 1980. In 1980 the Atari 2600 practically just released, giving most Americans their first taste of video games at home, and don’t even get started in cell phones, which the only ones available at that time were the size of a brick. Today, we have phones that are approaching the thinness of a piece of paper, and video games that are difficult to separate from real life. What a difference 40 years makes.
We can go back further, but at that point we might as well be looking at Old West. It’s crazy to think that there are people that have seen it all, a World War, the first rocket launch, the moon landing, color TV, the list goes on. These people have seen the world at it's worst, and at it's best, and are now journeying into the unknown. We are a world full of endless possibilities, and we really don't know where we'll end up. All we can do is hope for the best and hope for a bright future. The world has changed so much in such a short time, and it looks like that won’t be stopping any time soon. As the present now will later be past, for the times they are a-changin’.
