looking for a quote on age and technology

Ben Finney ben+python at benfinney.id.au
Thu Jan 2 00:52:11 EST 2014


Rustom Mody <rustompmody at gmail.com> writes:

> For a new technology:
>   If you are a kid when it comes out, you just take it as a matter of course
>   If you are a young adult, then it becomes a hot topic for discussion
>   If you are past middle-age you never get it
>
> Anyone knows/remembers it?

I think you're referring to an article by the late, great Douglas Adams,
“How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet”:

    I suppose earlier generations had to sit through all this huffing
    and puffing with the invention of television, the phone, cinema,
    radio, the car, the bicycle, printing, the wheel and so on, but you
    would think we would learn the way these things work, which is this:

    1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just
    normal;

    2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn
    thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can
    make a career out of it;

    3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the
    natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation
    as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it
    gradually turns out to be alright really.

    Apply this list to movies, rock music, word processors and mobile
    phones to work out how old you are.

    <URL:http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/19990901-00-a.html>

-- 
 \       “For fast acting relief, try slowing down.” —Jane Wagner, via |
  `\                                                       Lily Tomlin |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney




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