Catching up to the Speed of Thought.

The world is changing in ways that the common man can not comprehend. The speed of technological revolution has been no less than mind-boggling. Yesterday I said to my friend "I've seen the future and we're not in it".

Most adults are fairly oblivious to most of the technological changes that the world is experiencing and they feel very comfortable in their safe harbor of the known and are too scared or lazy to sail the high sees and explore the uncharted waters.

Never before in the history of time, children have such strong control and influence over the future. They live in a world that is very different to the adult world, I call it 'the world of imaginations' and in this world of imaginations, you are only limited by your imaginations and today the technology exists to transform your imaginations into reality faster than ever before. Children do come to us much more highly evolved than adults to teach us the lessons that we need to learn, with their ability to imagine without boundaries or limitations and their innocence and their perpetual curiosity they seem to forever keep extending their imaginations and they seem to be the real beneficiaries of our new technologies.

Last Saturday I went to a barbeque gathering at a friend's house at North Curl Curl beach. On this perfectly sunny day as most of the adults were enjoying their food and beer, lying back on the chairs chatting away and getting a tan. After a few beers, nature called and I had to break the ice and be the first one to visit the toilet to drain the many liters of beer that I had consumed over the last few hours. As I walked into the house heading to the loo, I made a very interesting observation. Most of the children in the party were indoors on the computer choosing the songs to play on itune and youtube. Simultaneously they had six dialogue boxes opened on MSN instant messenger, conversing and connecting with people on the other side of the town, country and even the world. I walked back out to the backyard and went straight to the cooler to get another beer (Pure Blond off course, as I was too trying to keep up with the technology and change and Pure Blond happened to be the most advanced beer in the market with its extremely low carbohydrates), I went back to my chair. As I reached my chair a young girl sitting next to me caught my eye by her assertiveness, as she demanded to her mother to get her a laptop with Internet connection, as she was not interested in listening to the boring adult conversations. Luckily Tracy who was one of the hosts of the BBQ had a laptop with iburst (wireless connection) and was kind enough to bring it out for the young girl. As it happened I was sitting right next to her and passionately observing her as she worked that laptop. She was chatting on MSN messenger with her school friends, had her Facebook account opened, googling from time to time to search for information and listening to music at the same time. From time to time I would see her chat to her friends about school, teachers, upcoming concerts and movies, celebrities, new product release, new website discoveries and much much more. Every time I made an attempt to talk to her, I received nothing more than a cold shoulder followed with the words, "you are shouting in my ears, I am busy now:. After my numerous attempts of talking to her, I simply asker her one question, the answer to which shut me up for good. I asker her how old she was... her reply... NINE.

I turned 27 in April this year (2007) and I think of myself of being quite technologically savvy, but I tell you one thing, when I was 9, I hadn't even seen a computer and I could barely talk a few words of good English and my idea of having fun at a barbeque party was playing Hide 'n' Seek around the block in Bombay.

The children today are different, they are born and live in an information rich society and on some levels they have matured far more than I have at 27 and definitely they are more technologically savvy than most adults. I have observed and I'm sure you have too, in today's day and age it is the adults that ask the kids how to do things, I remember growing up, it was me that my father used to ask to set up the VCR to the TV or the new computer or the stereo system. More than ever before, the children today have control of the steering wheel driving us towards the future. The future is only limited by their imaginations, and the world today is more conducive towards making any dreams and imaginations a reality than ever before, and the children of today are busy changing the world at a speed that the world had never experienced or even imagined before and finally the speed of change and growth is catching up to the speed of thought.

John Singh

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Please send me your feedback and post your comments or mail me at mail@johnsingh.com

22nd November 2007 - UPDATE

Thank you for all your wonderful feedback and support. I am proud to inform you all that this article has been accepted by a few magazines to be published and also by Ezine and can be viewed here http://EzineArticles.com/?id=843835

I look forward to providing more such articles as I uncover my thoughts over the months and years to come.

John Singh

Comments

[Jeremy Bracken]

Hi John,

Just got a chance to look at your article and love the powers of your observation and the fact you then draw some interesting conclusions from them.

I certainly agree with what you are saying in the sense that children pick up anything good or bad quickly and adapt to it because their minds are still malleable and this is the reason that children pick up language skills more quickly than adults. It therefore makes sense that children that are introduced to the latest communication technology will also adapt to this far quicker than we could ever hope to and as we get older in years our ability and desire to adapt also wanes.

The outcome of this will be as you note, the reality of human kind being able to increase our ability to communicate at speeds faster than ever before. However and there is always a however, there is a down side. As you noted with the little girl this type of communication does become all immersing and will no doubt lead to many other emotional and personal problems in the years to come. She may be able to communicate to several of her friends at once but can’t have a civil conversation with the person beside her in the room!

My concern is that communication is the key to understanding but more and more with advance technology we are seeing a disassociation and dislocation of people away from complete communication. You have the words but far less meaning, no body language, no real listening and most of all no real contact! Where does this lead us?

Well, you can write the next chapter.

Great work and very interesting.

Jeremy Bracken