If you think about living conditions 100 years ago, what immediately pops into your mind? Farming? Walking to school? Dirty and uncomfortable clothes? It is easy for us to think about all of the negatives about the past, but what about the positives? Lets take technology and throw that out the window (yes there are other things to compare than just technology), you see the thing is, now days technology is all that we think of. When someone says "future," immediately flying cars, space travel, and several other technology related things will instantly come to mind, but this is not what is important. Here are some things that I see as important (excluding technology).
First there is family; now think about this, you may have a good relationship with your family, but how much time do you spend with them? For me the answer to this is about two hours, but forty five minutes of that is during dinner. Now back to the past. In the mornings you would wake up and eat a good breakfast, that would probably take about an hour, then afterwards it was not uncommon for a family to read the Bible, TOGETHER! Let me ask you a question, when was the last time any of you did either of these. The last time I ate breakfast with my entire family was when all five of us children were being homeschooled, and then after that we would do our bible together (which was counted as one of our subjects) but since then this has never happened. After breakfast, the children would all walk to (the same) school, were the majority of them would sit next to each other. Once school got out they would head back home (again together) and later that night they would all eat dinner together and go to bed. Could you imagine everyone eating dinner at the same time, and on top of that, with no distractions, no T.V. no cellphones, no ipods or music.
Today, everyone wakes up at a different time. Dad wakes up at 5 and leaves for work, Mom wakes up at 8 and leaves for work, Highschoolers and middle schoolers wake up at 6 and go to school, while younger kids wake up at 8 or so. Finally at about 5 they all manage to end up back at home, but do they talk to each other, no, they are to busy doing home work watching T.V., or doing random things on the computer. At 6 everyone comes to the dinner table (given if everyone is even home, which is rarely the case with us) and eats for maybe thirty minutes and sometimes even less if the kids really have a lot of homework. Then finally at the end of the day everyone goes to bed at different times and hardly even says goodnight to each other. Talk about family interaction! Probably even half the time you are talking to a family member you are also simultaneously texting 3 or 4 friends.
Next we have communities which today, sad to say, are basically dead. Think of the last time you talked to your neighbors? for me this answer is "About 2 months ago" and I am sure most of you will say the same. How sad is this, they live literally 100 feet away and you haven't talked to them in that long! When was the last time you talked to your best friend? I am sure that you are actually texting him/her at this very moment. Now how far away does your best friend live? Do you see what we do here, if we don't like to be with someone we immediately cut them out of our lives, you don't even need to have a good reason for it, a simple "they talk funny," "She looks weird," or a "He said that to me," is enough for you to perminately erase them from your life. Do you know why we do this? because we can! As technology progresses we are able to communicate in more ways with people who are maybe hundreds of miles away, and because we can do this, we don't need to see them in person as often, don't believe me, well then when was the last time you actually saw your best friend? The point that I am trying to make is that now because we can choose who is in our lives, we don't even try to put up with anyone who we might find as annoying , or weird. This destroys our ability to cooperate with others.
Now back 100 years ago the odds are your best friend was either a sibling, or a neighbor (if you had any. I know what a concept right!). The reason why, was because you didn't want to have a best friend that it would take you an hour walk just to get to their house, you wanted a friend that you could spur of the moment decide to do something with. One other thing, if you wanted to tell them something, you would walk to their house, knock on the door and speak to them directly. Now days we could probably even remove our door bells since we always call ahead or just call if we wanted to talk. Now, for a mom or dad 100 years ago, they didn't call their friends, they would go to the general store and talk to who ever was there, all of whom she/ he probably already knew (could you imagine walking into a grocery store, and knowing everyone. Now days we walk into the grocery store and get excited when we see just one person that we know). Then walking through town, it wasn't uncommon to get stopped multiple times to talk to someone else and guess what, if they saw someone that they didn't know, they didn't just ignore them they actually introduced themselves. Next time when you are in a place with just one other person, don't just try to avoid them, talk to them. Who knows, they may just become your next best friend (You know, just in case you cut your best friend out of your life if they do something that you might not like, or get a little mad at. I must say apologies are totally extinct).
So next time you look back 100 years and think "I am so glad I didn't live then," think about it, because does technology make our pampered, intolerant, isolated, self focused, and online lives that we live right now worth it? I for one would have to say no.
