I'm scared of what my future children will be able to do.

I had a good conversation with a couple of sixth graders about technology not too long ago. I told them about the kinds of things that existed when I was a kid (and how different it was when I was their age):

• The pink boom box that I wanted for my 10th birthday in the worst way. I wanted the kind with double cassettes so I could record songs. I got it! And listened to my cassette of Gangsta's Paradise that my cousin made me, several times an hour.
• Dial up internet that we got when I was in 8th or 9th grade and was too slow to use. 
• The giant Nokia phone that I got at the end of my junior year of high school that had 30 minutes per month and was a hand-me-down from my aunt (AND WE DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT TEXTING YET). 
• The 1-800 number our family had, that I used if I needed to call my family from a payphone.
• Payphones.
• Disposable cameras we bought in bulk for trips, then got developed at Costco.
• Cassettes. 
• My very first CD, Celine Dion (right after Titanic came out). "My heart will go on" was number 3 and always on repeat. 
• TV shows you had to be home to watch. Also, TGIF was the highlight of my week.

My childhood was completely different than theirs. I'm at most 18 years older than these kids, which is decent, but the kind of gap in our experience is way more like the kind of gap between me and my grandparents. That's so crazy. It's kind of surreal to think about the kind of technological developments we've seen in the last 20 years.

I think this meme sums it up. It's not that kids have so many things that I didn't have access to when I was their age, it's just that they have so much more immediate access. It's in their pocket. Our childhoods are drastically different and possibly so are the the ways we see and experience the world. I am really grateful that I have vivid and happy memories before the internet and cell phones. I feel like it's a gift to know the joy of human relationships without them. On the flip side, maybe I have more guilt every time I indulge too much in the immediate access to entertainment, information, communication, etc. that I also keep in my pocket...because I know how much more meaningful life is without it. 

Here's the thing. One day I hope to have children. If technology continues advancing at this exponential rate, what will my kids be able to do? What kind of technology will exist? What haven't we even imagined yet? How different will the world be in 20 more years? Will they even understand my childhood? Or their grandparents'? Will they have deep and meaningful relationships? Will technology provide those for them or will it be even more difficult for them to avoid the distraction and connect with each other? I'm already not that tech-savvy, will I be able to keep up?