I remember being a kid in the back of my parents’ car on long driving trips to Wisconsin—we used to go to a place called Wisconsin Dells which is kind of a “Las Vegas for children”—lots of water parks, go-karts, and stuff like that. We’d stay in a cheap hotel with a swimming pool and my brother, sister and I would have a great time.
The only thing I didn’t like about those trips is the drive. It took about 3 or 4 hours to get there from my home in suburban Minneapolis. You see, back then, we didn’t have iPads on which we could watch movies. Hell, we didn’t even have iPods.
We pretty much had each other and the view of the nondescript, flat farmland that made up our view for most of that car ride.
Now, I look at my kids and their life is so different. We take them out with us to restaurants all the time. Usually, it’s only the three year old that gives us trouble these days. And when she does, I just flip out my iPhone and find Peppa Pig on YouTube. That pretty much pacifies her for the rest of the evening.
For those of you who are old enough to remember life before the internet and smartphones, just step back for a moment and compare your childhood reality to those of your children.
Your children know no reality without the internet. They may not be able to talk on the phone with the demise of landlines, but they know how to text and email and that has always been part of their reality.
So, in considering this, we have to understand that our entire sense of reality is actually a bit different then the younger generations.
I remember hearing Randi Zuckerberg, Mark’s sister, say that her son thought that his grandfather lived in a computer for the first few years of his life because he primarily saw him on Skype.
Our lives are becoming increasingly connected with the internet and the line between what is real and what is not real is actually changing.
You’ve probably heard of people buying virtual items online like crypto kitties for example. They live only on-line so why in the world would you buy one?
Well, what if you spend several hours per day on the internet. Is your cyber-bling any less important than the ones we consider “real”?
I have a picture of vintage Ferrari in my office that I’d like to get someday—in real life.
But the generations that are coming up don’t see the difference between owning that and owning something unique that only exists in this 4th dimension of cyber-reality. If you spend most of your downtime there, that’s probably where you want your version of that vintage Ferrari parked
Published on 7 years, 4 months ago
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