Evolving media - Teenagers chose net before TV

EXTRAORDINARY and relentless change is one of the defining characteristics of our time.

Though it is always vain to imagine that today’s generations have seen — and coped with — more change than any of our predecessors it is not a hard case to argue. Less than 50 years ago we put a man on the moon; 50 years before that most of humanity depended on horses for transport and 50 years before that millions upon millions died of diseases prevented today by a 10 cent vaccination.

After all there are people alive to today who, in the early part of their lives, depended on telegrams to communicate quickly over long distances. Now we use email, text or tweets to communicate instantly with anyone anywhere and, amazingly, think it unremarkable. The scale of that change, they way if affects how we live our lives — practically, emotionally or psychologically — should not be underestimated.