It was the 75th anniversary of the first flight of the Supermarine Spitfire today.
That made me think about our perception of technology, of newness, of cutting edge.
I started school in 1970. Around that time I would have become aware of the Spitfire - it's iconic role in the post second world war British landscape.
The Spitfire - despite its association with the war - was in service with the RAF late into the 1950s. In fact it was only retired by the Irish airforce in 1961.
And yet, my whole life through it has been a very distinct piece of history to me. Not part of my life more part of a past - one shot in black and white where different people lived under different rules and did different things.
And yet that plane existed only a few years out of synch with my own history.
So I wonder how my daughter, who started school in 2009, views screens she can't touch, mobile phones with no internet capability... The world before the Internet even.
What must she think of the world before broadband - of the time before the low-cost ability to connect with each other and organise around things that matter to us.
And how will she consider organisations which are unchanged by the impact these changes have made?
Perhaps she won't need to consider them at all? By the time she leaves school they may be retired. Like the Spitfire.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The further ahead you look - the faster you go | davidpcushman AT gmail.com | These are my views and my views only.
We still live in that age here in the final third. A whole third of the country who can't get a decent internet connection despite the hype of the telcos and the fumblings of the regulator who is sheepwalking us all into a digital third world.
ReplyDeleteI understand your thinking though, lots are moving on, and it is hard for those of us with a connection to imagine life without it. Foreign governments are rolling out fibre optic everywhere, whereas we continue to be conned that a victorian phone network can deliver next generation access. I hope your daughter doesn't move into the countryside one day, because her children will never see the benefits of access that she has done. They might see the odd spitfire though. I guess we like antiques better than progress.
;)
chris