It’s inevitable, though I would like to have thought it would never happen to me. I get older, and things change faster and faster. I’ve often commented on how my career didn’t exist when I graduated from high school. I started college with a typewriter. A mechanical one, for crying out loud. But the thing that got me on this kick tonight was phones.
Anyone in their late thirties should be able to remember a time when cell phones were not as common as wallets. I remember when people would call you, and if you didn’t answer they just tried back later. No harm no foul. Nowadays, everyone cops an attitude if you don’t pick up the moment they call. People really are starting to expect other people to always be available. You can tell I’m getting older because I said “pick up” the phone. Since you practically have the cell phone in your hand all day that’s not really an accurate phrase anymore. Though I do take a geeky old-person pleasure in hearing when people leave a message on their voicemail box like “hi, I’m away from my phone right now” or “I can’t get to the phone right now”… when you know with 95% certainty that the thing is right there in their pocket. (Or even better, “I’m on the other line”.)
Actually, what really sets me into the old fuddy duddy category is that I get crabby about always being available to everyone at anytime. I miss the days when a car ride was a time you didn’t have to have a conversation with someone, unless they were in the car with you. I miss the days when you didn’t lose your damn phone or accidentally put it in the washing machine, because it was stuck to a wall in your living room or kitchen.
Despite my crankiness, I find myself wondering what the future’s going to be like, even just 10 or 20 years from now. If you’d told me about cell phones when I was in high school, I’m not sure I’d have believed that we’d be walking around with little Star Trek phaser looking devices that would let us take pictures and video, send text messages, play games, surf the Internet, and sometimes take calls. Granted, it’s no hover car, but it’s still pretty darn scifi. Well, it was then.
What’s next for the Web? There’s an interesting tug of war between the increasing advancement of technology, and the shove of societal momentum. It leaves me not entirely sure that the future will come as fast as some predict. Despite having lived through many surprising changes (digital music, cell phones, the Web, etc.) I find it hard to envision what sort of technology people will embrace enough for it to become embedded in our lives.
My guess is that it’s technology morphing into what doesn’t appear to be technology. What I mean is that it seems that the more advanced we get, the more our technology mimics “the real world” around us. Programming languages are a perfect example. When I first learned to program it was on an Apple II+ writing lines of very linear code. A program was a list of instructions to be followed by the machine. In college I had to unlearn that and grasp the concept of Object Oriented Programming which fascinated me because of it’s similarity to physical objects. For example, if I’m writing a program that manipulates information about dogs, I would first create an “object” that described a dog in general terms. I can then create “instances” allowing me to easily define different types of dogs, without having to rewrite an entire program. It seems like the closer the technology comes to mimicking reality, the more powerful it gets. As we start to play with different mediums of computing (using the electrons in an atom to store bits instead of a hard drive) it seems we might begin to actually merge technology with reality. It might be that someday, all physical matter is part of a computer that can be programmed to do anything we want. Where along this road do websites become irrelevant?
A website is very often a substitute for you, or your business. It interacts with people on your behalf. Maybe what’s next is actual reproductions of ourselves, perhaps run by an artificial intelligence modeled on our own minds that can interact with any number of other people at the same time? It seems like the benefits of saved time would ensure this be at least as overpowering as cell phones. Or maybe instead of substitutes, we are able to finally merge with our technology and expand our capabilities enough to interact with anyone and everyone, all at the same time.
The role of designer, I believe, will always play a part… or developer, or programmer, or whatever you want to call it – a person who manipulates a medium to produce a desired result. The canvas and tools will change, but there will always be a role for the creative mind.
Just remember though, when I was your age, we didn’t have no fancy Internet and HDTV and DVD and MP3…. we had to actually interact with each other. And if we live long enough to see technology advance far enough, we’ll make it be that way again!!
