I'm approaching my 50s, and for me, it's because I am still astounded by the achievement of a global, low-cost, communications network.
When I was a child, international phone calls were still rare, expensive, and unreliable things, and if you left your home country, staying in touch mostly involved getting newspapers from home (24 hours late), or maybe getting lucky and receiving shortwave radio broadcasts like the BBC World Service or Voice of America.
First getting internet access seemed amazing, and for me it's still amazing. Even when you were first tethered to a copper phone line, that line seemed like a pipe to the entire world. Cellular internet blew my mind, and satellite technologies like Starlink are blowing my mind again.
What an absolute privilege to be living in an age of almost universal global communication.
Yes, I remember that early thrill of a chat room or forum where I was communicating with someone on the other side of world. And not only that, the marginal cost to do so was practically free once I already had a cheap second hand computer and a dialup connection, and during college my school ran a free dialup ISP for times when I was at home.
The shine has worn off though. The fact that you might be 10,000 miles away or even typing you comments from the International Space Station no longer thrills me. It's all become mundane. (Well, if it was the ISS then I suppose that would still be pretty awesome)
When I was a child, international phone calls were still rare, expensive, and unreliable things, and if you left your home country, staying in touch mostly involved getting newspapers from home (24 hours late), or maybe getting lucky and receiving shortwave radio broadcasts like the BBC World Service or Voice of America.
First getting internet access seemed amazing, and for me it's still amazing. Even when you were first tethered to a copper phone line, that line seemed like a pipe to the entire world. Cellular internet blew my mind, and satellite technologies like Starlink are blowing my mind again.
What an absolute privilege to be living in an age of almost universal global communication.