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Remember Way Back When, in 2004...
Every now and then I get one of those lists of "things from the past" (records, pong games...). They are a pretty interesting demonstration of how quickly things change, and how easy it is for us to forget the old, and take the new for granted. I thought it would be interesting to take "a look back" at our own time, from the future. Here are some things we might be saying, eventually.
Linda Eskin
Writer, user interface designer, and (for today) futurist.
February 2004
Gosh, what a different world it is now! Remember...
... when phone service had to be brought into your home on wires strung down the street and across the yard?
... when you couldn't pause the TV or radio - you made your family or friends wait instead?
... when people had "computers" that needed a whole desk, and the whole family had to share one?
... e-mail spam? junk mail? phone solicitors?
... when you could go for a hike on public parklands, and it didn't cost anything?
... when McMansions and SUVs were status symbols? (Or at least the people who had them seemed to think so.)
... when drug addiction was thought of as criminal behavior, instead of a health problem?
... when public schools encouraged students to buy sodas and junk food, to raise money for sports?
... when there was a "legal" amount of alcohol a driver could have in their system?
... when computer displays where big flat things that had to be propped up on your desk?
... property taxes on families' homes?
... when casual use of tobacco was legal, but medical use of marijuana was a crime?
... when mail was printed on paper, and delivered to your home by people who drove to every house in the country, 6 days a week, in gasoline-powered vehicles?
... when women had to wear infection-causing nylons and bone-damaging shoes to be taken seriously in business?
... and men thought that looked sexy?
... when your phone, camera, organizer, GPS, music/video player, radio, TV, e-mail, and home remote all required separate gadgets, each the size of your hand?
... "reality" TV? wrestling? talk/fight/sensationalism shows?
... when it was legal to develop housing tracts and malls on good farmland?
... when tattooing and piercing your body was cool?
... when you couldn't keep a few hens in the backyard (because of the noise and smell), but your neighbors could freely use those old gas-powered blowers to move their dust into your yard first thing every Saturday morning?
... when you had to stop everything to watch TV programs at a certain time, or else you'd miss them?
... when you had to choose between watching one show or the other, so networks would put their best shows all on at the same time?
... when there was meat and milk that *wasn't* "hormone free"?
... that brief golden age when antibiotics were effective against deadly diseases?
... when coming in to work when you were sick was tolerated, even encouraged?
... when people would buy machines to make their work easier, then spend even more on machines for exercise?
... how it was before people realized that working themselves to death to buy more and more expensive toys was a way of life promoted by industry and government, to increase spending, and taxes, and keep people too busy to think about what industry and government were doing?
... the unemployed workers' marches that finally got NAFTA repealed?
... when you could park by the ends of runways to watch the big jets land and take off?
... when a person could do a stupid thing, then sue (and win!) because someone should have prevented them from doing it?
... there were stores full of movies, on tapes and disks, and if you wanted to "rent" one you had to go there to get it, and go there again to return it?
... when area codes and prefixes were correlated with cities and neighborhoods?
... TV shows would just stop in the middle, and the station would air full-screen ads? And everybody took this for granted?
... when the U.S. government panicked, and banned all sorts of ethnic specialties to avoid the very tiny chance of anyone getting mad cow disease, yet allowed burgers, fries, donuts, and sodas to be sold on every streetcorner (and in schools!), while millions suffered and died from heart disease, diabetes, and other diet-related health problems?
... when everyone had several big cans for trash, but just one little tub for recycling?
... media cards that you had physically remove from your camera, music player, whatever, and insert into a "card reader" attached to your computer? (Do you even know where they are now? In an old desk drawer in the garage?)
... DVD movie players in vehicles, so children wouldn't be troubled with learning social skills, or observing the world around them. Boy, what a mistake those were!
... dial-up connections? fax machines? digital clocks that were impossible to set?
... VCRs?
... Pieces of furniture just for storing collections of movies and music?
... before hearing aids were cool fashion accessories, like sunglasses, and people would try to hide the fact that they were wearing them?
... when it was illegal for someone with a cow to sell fresh milk to a neighbor, but legal for companies to provide accounting services to their audit clients?
... When U.S. coins and bills, and the Pledge of Allegience, contained religious references?