The future ain’t what it used to be
Today didn’t exactly turn out how we expected. What can we do about tomorrow?
If you grew up reading comics, listening to radio serials, or watching early television shows, you probably developed some very firm ideas about what the future would look like.
Now we’re living in that future; reality probably doesn’t quite match your childhood expectations.
The seers of yesteryear were, at best, only partially correct.
Take Dick Tracy’s “Two-Way Wrist Radio”, introduced in the comic strip in 1946. At the time, the idea of talking to someone through a device worn on your wrist was pure fantasy.
Today, smartwatches allow us to make calls, send messages, monitor our health, navigate our way around town, and even pay for our groceries. In this case, science fiction took its time but was surprisingly on point.
In the 1960s Batman television series, the hero’s utility belt was filled with special gadgets designed to solve problems at a moment's notice.
While few of us carry grappling hooks or bat-shaped boomerangs, we do carry smartphones that combine the functions of a camera, torch, map, calculator, music player, notebook, and communication device.
The smartphone may not look as exciting as Batman’s various accessories, but it’s arguably more useful – even if we can’t buy shark repellant in a can, yet.
The Jetsons – the 1960s cartoon that imagined life in the year 2062 – featured domestic robots, video calling, smart homes, and, most famously, flying cars.
Some of these predictions have already become reality. Video calls are now routine, and many homes contain smart speakers, automated appliances, and robotic vacuum cleaners. However, flying cars remain mostly experimental, and they are nowhere near becoming everyday transport for everyday suburban families.
What is perhaps more interesting is what the futurists missed.
While some science-fiction writers imagined vast computer networks, almost nobody predicted the internet and how it would transform daily life.
Online banking, digital shopping, video streaming, social media, and instant access to information have changed society in ways that would have been difficult to imagine even a few decades ago.
Similarly, many forecasts assumed that adopting technology would give us more leisure time. Instead, many people find themselves busier than ever, constantly connected through phones, computers, and other gadgets.
For many of us, the future has delivered wonderful conveniences, but it has also created new challenges.
Perhaps that is the real lesson: the biggest changes in life can come from unexpected directions.
We haven’t got flying cars, yet, but we’ve gained the ability to carry vast amounts of information in our pockets.
All of which has me wondering. When a small child reads a book or watches a movie or TV show today, what kind of future are they imagining? And how will it really be when they get there?
And that, of course, raises a big challenge for us: How can we help shape a better world for our grandchildren and their children to inherit?
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