h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The 90s saw me finish high school, move out of home and get a uni degree. The thing that I think most transformed life for us was the advent of the mobile phone. When I finished Year 12 they were absolutely unheard of; now every child has their own ('for security', yeah, right). By 1995 when I finished my degree they were beginning to become ubiquitous, but were still a hated symbol of yuppie wankerism within uni circles. I'm now working in the engineering industry, and just this morning we were discussing the logistics of getting some photos of a section of remote highway... The team PA said, 'that's OK, I'm driving to Queensland on Thursday; I'll just take some pics on my phone and email them back to you'. How far we have come!
Not that they're entirely marvellous; I confess to experiencing a lovely guilty frisson when my phone occasionally dies and I have no way of charging it... a whole day out of contact -- bliss!
I remember reading somewhere, about new technology, that anything that already exists when you're very young is just the way things should be; things that emerge when you're an adolescent or young adult are amazing improvements that are easily absorbed into the culture; and anything that's invented after you're about 40 is just against the natural order of things!

It really is astonishing isn't it? I can't imagine how odd (and lonely) it would be now to be so 'isolated' from everyone else - to be deprived of the immediacy of email, for example. We now seem to be constantly in contact with everyone.

I remember loathing people with mobile phones as well - we always associated them with yuppies or drug dealers! (Then again I remember associating CD players with Dire Straits fans...)

My mobile phone is currently dormant due to a brief exchange it had with bathwater last night - and it's really starting to bother me...

apparently a lot of parents are buying their kids mobile phones "for emergencies", the usual emergency being "I've just been mugged for my mobile phone!"

A few years back, if you wanted to see what your friends were up to, you either called their house phone or did the rounds around the neighbourhood! Good luck doing that now...I dunno if it's just me, but as you get older your friends seem to end up more and more scattered. Pre-mobiles you could get just about all your closest friends assembled in less than half an hour. Now that's the time it takes to walk to each of their houses

I think it's quite ridiculous seeing primary school kids, or kids just out of there with mobiles. I honestly can't work out what the hell they need 'em for.

That's a really good point about the mugging! We have a family friend who is one of these 'resident experts' that get called upon by the media to pass comment on the latest social trend (he's a psychologist); I remember when this suggestion of 'mobile phones for protection' first arose, he was widely quoted in the Australian press as saying that if you were being attacked, the most use your phone could serve would be as a blunt instrument to use on the attacker. This was in the old days of the trusty house brick model, of course -- these days you'd be more likely to lose the thing up the guy's nostril!
Maybe that's the next 'remember when' -- 'Remember before mobile phones were surgically implanted, and you had to carry them around with you?'...
Not sure what that would mean for Natalie's bath mishap, though... The waterproof phone mustn't be far away. I can just see the line-up out the back at Cronulla, waiting for the next set and doing some business in the meantime!