The world has progressed massively and changed rapidly in the last ten to fifteen years, so much so, that if a teenager of today were to time-travel back to the time of their birth; let’s say to the turn of the century, they would find the world an almost unrecognizable place. In a modern world of virtual reality and driverless cars and space travel an era when there was no internet is almost inconceivable to a seventeen year old. Here’s a list of some of the major changes that have taken place in the last decade and a half.

Online Shopping

At the turn of the century retail is something that happened in shops on the high street. If people were transacting on the internet they were either very progressive thought leaders or they were up to no good. Now you can buy almost anything online and truth be told you could survive quite happily without ever leaving home if you needed to. And it’s so simple. Gone are the days of finding parking, drawing money, traipsing through thousands of aisles at hundreds of shops only to find the item you wanted wasn’t in stock. Now all you need is a computer and a vague notion of what you want. Open in the browser, type in what you want. Be it vintage dresses Australia or titanium drill bits or crocodile food, you will not only be able to find what you want, but you can probably have it despatched to your house and ready to use before the end of a week.

Telephony

Remember when owning a mobile phone was noteworthy and everybody had a fixed line phone. Now it’s completely the other way round with mobile penetration at over 100 per cent in most countries. In fact, these days, the first sign that your child is no longer a child, but a young adult, is probably when they ask for their first phone. And it probably happens around the age of seven or eight. And they will never ask for a fixed line phone in their room, the notion is just so preposterous.

Cryptocurrency

Everybody is doing now. Or if they are not then everybody is talking about it at least. Be it Bitcoin or Ethereum or any one of the other more than one hundred different block-chain-based currencies they are slowly but surely taking over as the favoured topic of conversation at dinner parties and boardrooms alike. The old days of trading shares or traditional currencies are a thing of the past. It’s seen as staid and something for bankers who want to get rich at the expense of others. Teenagers of today are queuing to take their financial destiny into their own hands and the master plan is built around a mix of hard work and savvy investment in Cryptos – a field that wasn’t on the radar of most of us as recently as five years ago.

Music

Hands up if you remember compact discs. Wow, you must be old! Although not as old as if you remember records. Or tapes. What a laugh. Remember those. The notion of a tape is almost quaint it seems so old-school. It’s certainly beyond the understanding of most teenagers, for who music is about online streaming and automated playlists and the likes. And yet when 1999 turned to 2000 there were plenty of people, who would still consider themselves young today, who would have partied in the New Year to the sound of something recorded onto a cassette – an item that these days you are more likely to find in a museum than in a teenagers bedroom.