Party like it’s 1974: the everyday tech that would blow your great grandparents away

It is easy to become numb to the amount of new tech around, but technology has come mind-blowingly far in a short time.

Developments in technology were significantly slower in the past – the new technologies that our ancestors discovered in childhood would have commonly been used in their lives as they grew older. Whereas for recent generations, it’s increasingly common for technologies that were unimaginable to us as children, to later become part of our everyday life.

While some might argue that constant connectivity comes with its downsides, there's no denying the incredible progress we've made.

50 Years Back (1974): Brick Phones and Cassette TapesLet’s flash back to 1974. The first portable cell phone, the "DynaTAC 8000X," weighed a whopping 2.5 pounds (basically a hefty brick!), music lived on clunky cassette tapes, and the internet? Non-existent.

Communication meant landline calls, and entertainment involved bulky TVs with limited channels. Information came from dusty encyclopaedias and bulky newspapers. The closest thing to social media was face-to-face interaction, which, believe it or not, still exists today!

30 Years Ago (1994): The Dawn of the Digital AgeFast forward three decades, and the tech landscape starts to resemble something we might recognise. Blockbuster was the go-to for entertainment, with its chunky VHS tapes. The bulky brick phone finally shrunk, giving rise to the iconic and nearly indestructible Nokia 3310, and the "flip phone" revolution began.

But the real game-changer? The internet. The first web browser, Mosaic, opened our doors to the wild world of the internet. This was dial-up internet, with screeching modem sounds and it was painfully slow compared to today's speeds, but it connected us to a new world of information. Communication also took a leap forward with email and early chat rooms. MSN anyone?

The Last 10 Years (2014 - now): A World in Your PocketNow, let's jump to 2014. The pace of change really picked up in the last decade. In future history books, this period of rapid technology adoption will be viewed very closely.

We welcomed the era of the smartphone; supercomputers in our pockets capturing memories with high-resolution cameras, sleek designs and endless apps which have become our constant companions. From instant messaging to news, and entertainment, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter connected us globally - for better or worse.

We stream music and movies, shop online, and connect with anyone in seconds. Cloud storage replaced bulky hard drives, and Siri and Alexa became our virtual assistants. Technology has become seamlessly integrated into our lives, changing the way we work, learn, and interact.

The Future? It’s hard for us to imagine the future technologies that will fundamentally change the world we are used to but one thing's for sure: the future promises even more advancements: artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and self-driving cars are just a few possibilities on the horizon with immense power to change the way we live.

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Sources:

Morrar, R., Arman, H. and Mousa, S., 2017. The fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0): A social innovation perspective. Technology innovation management review, 7(11), pp.12-20.

Roser, M., 2023. Technology over the long run: zoom out to see how dramatically the world can change within a lifetime. Published online at OurWorldInData.org.