The 2048 teenager questions the teenager of today
by
Mike Sarokin
Let’s spin forward 40 years to the year 2048. Today’s 15 year old teenager is now approaching age 55. The 2048 teenager refers to the 55 year old as “the old guy”. The following is a fictional conversation between the 2048 teenager and “the old guy”.
2048 Teenager Get real, you actually sent messages on your mobile phone by typing with your thumbs?
“The old guy” You are right. We typed text messages on mobile phones with our thumbs. In fact, we made up our own shorthand language”. It was pretty cool, since our parents didn’t know what we were saying.
2048 Teenager Can you tell me some of the cool shorthand words you used?
“The old guy” Don’t laugh but we used words like LOL, TTFN, and L8R.
2048 Teenager I didn’t realize that your generation was so cool.
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2048 Teenager Tell me again, why did people send letters by postal mail in 2008?
“The old guy” This must seem to you like the Pony Express seemed to my generation. Back in 2008 much of the population, especially the older population, did not grow up using computers. Sending letters by postal mail was their preferred method of communication. Around the year 2030 the majority of the population used email like to communicate.
2048 Teenager Email, what is that?
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2048 Teenager You actually had cables and wires in your house?
“The old guy” I realize that today everything is wireless. Yes, the home I grew up had cable for TV and electrical lines for power.
2048 Teenager Yeah, I saw that on This Old House. One of my favorite segments is on how to use the old wiring as decoration items.
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2048 Teenager I understand that back in the old days you had to watch TV based on a schedule. We can watch any show, from anywhere, at any time we want to watch it. How did you survive?
“The old guy” Personally, I survived by using my DVR to record shows and playing them back when I want to.
2048 Teenager I can’t imagine watching MTV on a fixed schedule. Did you really pay to watch TV?
“The old guy” It was unfortunate but if you wanted to watch TV other than the local channels you had to pay. We even had to pay for mobile phone usage and to make it worse it was by the minute.
2048 Teenager You really had it rough in the old days.
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2048 Teenager My history teacher taught us that 2008 was one of the most important points in history is when the world focused on energy conversation. My teacher said that without those efforts we wouldn’t have the comforts that we have today.
“The old guy” We called the project Green Energy. I have fond memories of that time. In 2008, we focused on switching to environmentally friendly energy. That meant some big changes. I remember my parents selling their gas engine car for a hybrid engine car in 2008. I also remember my parents selling their hybrid car a few years later for a hydrogen powered car.
2048 Teenager My teacher also taught me that the computer industry had an initiative called “Green IT” to converse energy. Since you are now the CIO of a computer company, I imagine you were part of that effort also.
“The old guy” Absolutely. Green IT was a challenge throughout the early 2010’s. Today the computer industry is focused on another major challenge “Wireless IT”. Our challenge is to reduce the electrical noise from our wireless communication environment. Hopefully, your generation will have a noise free environment to grow up in.
2048 Teenager How can I help?
“The old guy” You can start by turning down the volume in your 567th generation iPod.
