Tecnology is has changed our lives forever. No longer do we lick stamps and send messages to our friends far away not do we have to be in the same country see in realtime to see each other.
Teleportation aside We really do live in a science fiction future.
But what about the person that was born into the this. That doesnt know anything else. This is his reality, and our conversation was awesome.
Familiarity with the technical world
This kid was by far not a technical individual, he was a half Rican from Orlando coming from a visit to his Abuelas. We chatted a bit for no reason (this happens more than it should) and it was about him loving basketball, his moms friends (she was in the seat in front of us) and the girl he liked that he was afraid to talk to. IDK.. Anyway so after asking what was my career path, he immediately asked if I knew X-Code, Javascript and if im just gonna send the work to India.
Thoughts on college education
He said he wasnt sure if he was going to college after school, it was too expensive and he could probably learn some skills online and get an internship in the field. Now he wasnt talking about TECH.. thats what surprised me, but more along the lines of being a chef or owning a food truck. I dont think this is the best decision, but its interesting to see what the genuine thoughts on college are from someone just about to graduate high school.
Media consumption
I learned a lot about how media is consumed. I legit dont think he knows the Major television stations apart from ESPN. His reality is Netflix, Hulu and YouTube. That was interesting to hear, and telling to the direction that media WILL be consumed in the future.
Location services and airplane speed
I consider myself fairly technical. One of the things that I like doing is checking the speed of the airplane with snapchat. Im not sure how legal is this.. but yeah
So I couldnt get it to work.. kid grabbed my phone and said duh ! your wifi isnt on, snapchat uses the GPS, WFI and the Accelerationmeter (he go the name of the accelerometer wrong) to tell you all that info. I was impressed. Mainly because once again, this is not a technical individual, and the matter-of-factly way in which he was familiar with duh technology, put me in check. I guess this is what it feels like when your parents cant get the internet to turn on or other nuances that have become second nature and trivial to us, yet technical to them.
Conclusion
Dude .. Were already there. Were in the future. Words like flat screen tv sound like what color television sounded to us when our parents say it. Embracing technology not as a fad, but apart of our inevitable reality.