
Every generation has an invention that their kids won’t believe they once lived without. I think that my future children will be shocked to learn that iPhones and iPads were introduced when I was in elementary school. I remember a kid in my 4th-grade class talking about getting an iPad and thinking it was the darndest thing. My kids are probably going to be pretty shocked that I got through high school and college before the invention of generative AI. I’ll be sure to hold that over their heads when they start complaining about their homework.
Some inventions become so pervasive and seemingly “timeless” that people who were born after they came out can’t even wrap their minds around the idea that there was once a world without them. There was a time when the world didn’t have Velcro. The size of the modern bottled water industry was inconceivable in the 70s and 80s. TV used to close at the end of the day.