Life On Demand

Introduction

Yesterday I was at a work conference and my dad called me four times. Now normally I could text and say I would call back later, and that would be Ok, but despite having a state-of-the-art phone, my dad doesn't read texts because he does not know how to.

With a telephone, there is only an answer. There is no other option, although he does sometimes leave a voice message, but that is a rarity.

The music I have included is "Living In The Past" by Jethro Tull.

So Life On Demand.

As a child, I lived in a time of two black and white channels, and that was television for us, so of the people I knew at school didn't even have televisions so we were privileged. Telephones were landlines, and if you missed a call, you missed a call.

That was true of television and radio, and if you missed something, you missed something, and that was it.

I remember in the sixties having a reel-to-reel tape recorder with a microphone in the house, but that was not an option for anything but silliness.

In the seventies, we started to get devices that could record things. Answerphones so people could call you when you were not home. Up to then, you had to be by the phone, and if you just missed it, you didn't know who had called you and had to hope they would call back. Also, you never knew who was calling.

The answerphone meant that people could leave messages, although they were limited in application. Businesses had Fax machines, and apparently, the NHS has only just put a stop on buying Fax machines. Didigital scanning has overtaken and made them obsolete. I can do it with my phone (sorry, hand-held computer)

We also got the cassette recorder so we could record radio and vinyl records to make our own mix tapes to keep or share with friends.

For media, we know that companies recorded things which they then broadcast, often repeating programs. causing complaints from people.

Then we got video recorders, which allowed us to record programs to watch at our convenience, although at first there was no way to schedule recordings.

That gave everyone the ability to record from television and to play pre-recorded films, which, when they first came out, cost about a hundred pounds to buy.

Then the recorders allowed you to schedule recordings so you did not have to be there to record and could watch at your convenience.

Tape is a fragile, if convenient medium, and that was eventually superseded by discs, and they have eventually fallen somewhat to streaming.

Landlines were challenged by mobile phones, and they have metamorphosed into hand-held computers that allow us to communicate in a plethora of ways, not just voice, but some people still just want a device that they can speak with, even if it is portable.

So Where We Are Now

We can put almost anything on pause and catch up with it at our convenience. It may be by text, email, or voicemail.

Although I have a DVD collection, TV and film are almost always watched via some form of streaming, and that allows me to watch things when I want or have time.

We can generally communicate and enjoy media at our own convenience.

Conclusion

We are living in a future that most of us never saw coming, and I do enjoy the benefits, but there are still people who want to live as we did decades ago (and sometimes that can be a very bad thing).

Thank you for reading these thoughts on where we are now.