Computers and Coffee, Who Would of Thought?

Transport yourself back to 1981...

Where did you live and what were you doing? What were your interests? What did you devote your time to? How did you access the news? How did you spend your lunch breaks at work? How did you access information? How did you connect with friends? How did you buy your concert tickets? How did you check your fantasy football - fantasy football... what's that? How did you listen to music? How did you make a restaurant reservation? How did you transfer funds into a different bank account? Where did you go to pay your mortgage? How did you monitor your debt? How did your mom discover a new recipe? How did you send mail? What did yo use to talk to somebody across the country? How did you check up on your kids in daycare while you were at work? How did you go shopping? How did you hear about national tragedy? How did you help elect a president? How did you research a car you were considering buying? How did you communicate to loved ones in other countries? If you wanted to "poke" your friend, how would you of done that? How did you gossip? How did you contribute your knowledge to the world? How did you express your passions? What did you use to research a company before you investing in it? How did yo humor yourself? How did you meet your wife? Why did you and your stock broker have such a good relationship? How did you monitor your home security? Where did you watch movie trailers? What did you use to listen to radio? How did you custom design your t-shirts? How did you express your artistic ability? How did you make your money? Where did you sell your unwanted belongings?

The Multi-Million Dollar Learning Curve

Today I had the thrill of teaching Facebook to a serial entrepreneur and multi-millionaire, and it was one of the funniest experiences of my entire life. Why was it so funny? With somebody whose accolades range from starting help trigger a cultural revolution to accomplishing the fastest IPO in history to building a billion dollar business, you'd think pretty much anything came naturally to a person like this - but absolutely not.

How could something as simple as sending a message to a friend be such a difficult concept? Sharing a link - what the heck is that? Somebody tagged me in a video so they could gain more recognition and traffic, even though I wasn't even in the video, what an asshole! Who the heck put these pictures of me up online - I didn't approve this! Tagging - is that an illegal act? Who are these "wall" comments directed to? Why are these people talking about me?

Its important to remember that the little things younger generations take for granted don't come second nature to everybody. While "those social network things" aren't anything new, there's still a giant technology gap between younger and older generations even in today's high speed digital era. Are we nearing a point in the not-too-distant future where technology evolves quicker than mainstream society's ability to adapt these changes? Will human aptitude to receive, process, adopt and perfect technology limit the speed of future progress?

With technological innovation evolving at light speed, specifically in regards to the internet, have we ever seen such a large gap in common knowledge? Probably not. Has there ever been such an important society-influencing technological innovation that was so easily adopted by a younger generation and relatively disregarded by an older generation?