Y2K is Coming, and we're all Doomed.

It never happened? Well, we still have 2012 to look forward to.

If I were born in 1975 instead of 1995, I’d be, well, strictly speaking, dead. You see, I was born two months premature. I was in the ICU for forty days, the doctors making sure that everything was right, and to let me grow to a more healthy weight. Luckily, aside from being smaller than most of my friends for the next few years, I was perfectly fine.

Well, assuming that I did turn out fine, my social life would have been radically different, with the technology of the time being a huge influence in this. How everyone communicates in the 90s is what it has been for a long time. The only thing that’s new and hip is the internet, except it doesn’t really have much of anything on it and Google doesn’t even exist yet. That means that the only way to talk to someone is either by phone, face-to-face, or snail mail. Almost everything we take for granted in 2011 hasn’t been invented yet in 1991. Here’s a few of the major technological differences.

-Cell Phones: These are large and cumbersome. They’re also very expensive, and you don’t get a lot of coverage. Also, what’s a text message?
-Facebook: The only book with faces on it is a photo album, and those photos were taken with real film that had to be developed in a dark room. As stated before, there’s not much of an internet right now, and most computers are still text-based. But hey, on the up side, all of your personal info isn’t readily available for the entire world to see.
-Twitter: The only things tweeting are birds.
-Skype: What’s that? Is it like Skynet from Terminator?
-YouTube: All the funny videos you’ll be watching will be on the TV on America’s Funniest Home Videos.

A time-traveler would probably experience culture shock several magnitudes higher when traveling from 1991 to 2011 than if she/he traveled from 1971 to 1991. This is because the growth of technology is exponential; the higher the level of technology, the faster it grows. Now that I’ve explained the background of the differences in communication and social interactions of 1991 and 2011, it’s time to return to the original topic: the implications of the technology level versus relationships.

These social networking sites allow for people to communicate much more than they used to; rather than setting up a hang-out time and location, people can simply use Skype or Apple’s FaceTime to have instant voice and video chat with one or more people, or have a simple text-based chat through Facebook or text messaging. Sure, these allow for a more constant connection between peers and it can help less socially-adept people acquire more friends; however, whether these relationships are more real is debatable. Sure, there were superficial friendships in the 90s and today, but developing a friendship solely through technology is a completely different world from actual contact; text can’t convey emotions or body language – and while there is video chat, the quality isn’t enough to convey everything that is felt between two people who are physically feet from each other.

So yes, all relationships, including mine, would be different in 1991 than they are in 2011. Even if I could have grown up in the 80s, I still prefer 2011. Sure, it would be fascinating to grow up in the 80s, living through events such as the end of the Cold War, the release of the Game Boy, the Chernobyl Disaster, and many other events that my parents remember, but only if just temporarily. Every year is unique; not only that, but every month and every day and every moment, history is created. So to answer the question, I prefer living in the present and experience all of the brilliant advances, but I still do take the opportunity to meet with friends in person, because there’s no substitute for reality (yet).