My father came home one day, very excited with a new invention, Velcro! He worked in plastics, but I’m not sure if the plastic factory where he was manager actually produced it. Looking up Velcro I see it was commercially available in the fifties, but to us in the late 1960s it was a novelty. He kept trying to find ways of using Velcro around the house.
More exciting inventions lay ahead of course, Dad once said that he would like to live to a hundred to see what would be invented. Sadly he only got past seventy. August 2025 he would have been one hundred and I have thought for a while it would be interesting to think of how many new inventions he has missed. This is rather an overwhelming task; there is a difference between something being invented and most people being aware or getting to use it.
2025 also marks a quarter of a century gone by, whether 25 is the last year of the quarter or the first year of the next, doesn’t really matter. I can remember when, thanks to George Orwell, 1984 was The Future, then 2001 A Space Odyssey confirmed the start of a new century as the obvious FUTURE when we would be living in plastic bubbles on the moon.
All that seemed to happen at the turn of the century was the panic that all the computers would get confused and everything would be switched off. At work we were seriously considering whether we should all go home and fill the garage with tins of food and flagons of water. Chez Gogerty we didn’t in the end and luckily all was well.
How has life changed in those twenty five years? Before the millennium I naively thought the twenty first century would be one of peace after all the violence of the twentieth, how wrong could I be. We can definitely conclude that humans have tried everything to make the world a better place, following faith, education, new political ideas, better medical treatments, scientific improvements. Alas new inventions are hijacked by criminals and war mongers as well as doctors and scientists hoping to improve lives.
So what in your life is vastly different from 2001 AD or CE .
I seem to recall saying at the end of last century that had I known home computers were going to be invented, I would not have got married let alone had children! I cannot recall why. Probably children arguing over whose turn it was to use the one computer and me saying everyone was spending too much time on that ghastly second hand machine with green writing, my memories are hazy. I do know that fathers were saying they should get a computer for the children, when they actually wanted one for themselves.
Now of course I can’t imagine not having a computer and iPad and panic if I forget my phone, even if I am just popping to the greengrocers.
What has changed in your life over the past twenty five years?
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 
Generally quite little. “Phone” is the obvious thing but I had a Nokia brick around then and it had all the hallmarks of a modern phone. It could even receive faxes!
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It seems some things have been around a lot longer than we thought.
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Quite a lot has changed for me since 2001. My younger brother and mother have passed away, and I bailed from my higher education career five years sooner than originally planned.
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Hello Liz, yes some events you wouldn’t have expected.
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That’s for sure.
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So many gadgets and machinery are being invented. Sometimes we would think that the older ones like sewing machines and electric typewriters are better.😍
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Yes Arlene, there was nothing wrong with the original machines and everyone would still be using them if different items hadn’t been invented.
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I remember we panicked in 2000 that the computer couldn’t handle the change of time.
A lot has happened since 2001. I got cancer in 2008. My father-in-law passed away that year. I retired in 3010. My daughter got married in 2011. I was reHer first child was born 2017, second child in 2020. We moved from California to Oregon in 2022.
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Yes Miriam, the time seems to have gone quickly, but for lots of us many life changing things have happened.
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I saw many typos in my response. Sorry. I did that on my phone in the waiting room during my husband’s nose surgery. I’m sure you figured out what I tried to say, Janet! 😊
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Yes Miriam, phones are wonderful for when you are stuck in a waiting room, but they also love to mix up our words. I hope your husband got on alright with his nose surgery. I went to help when my daughter had nose surgery in November, she had to stay in bed taking things very gently.
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I’m sure your daughter appreciated your help. He had Septoplasty surgery and is doing very well. No pain and stopped bleeding.
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That’s good it went well.
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I love your blog post, Janet!
It feels like the whole world has completely changed in 25 years. Like you, I thought we would have evolved to a more peaceful and awakened species by now, but I have constantly been disappointed with the slowness (and sometimes backtracking) of progress. There is still so much cruelty and corruption to overcome all over the world, and it is heartbreaking! For me, in the past 25 years, I lost both parents and a brother, many cats, and I retired from both a civilian career and a Naval career. And in at least the past decade, I have watched with horror as the US has descended into madness (or maybe has become more open about it’s madness). Either way, it is not the direction I had anticipated I would be witnessing later in life, when I was looking ahead 25 years ago! I don’t want to sound too gloomy, because I actually, surprisingly, still have faith that things will ultimately get better, but I obviously underestimated the time it would take to get there! 25 years is such a short time in the greater scheme of things, and I guess when I think about it, all of us actually do experience quite a lot in that short period of time – many of those experiences being life-changing!
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Thanks Anita, probably a good thing we can’t see the future. My mother said if in the fifties they had given up, expecting nuclear annihilation instead of getting on with life, they would have looked a bit stupid! We have to keep going and preserving the good things.
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I don’t remember when I got my first computer (probably more than 25 years ago), but that would be my answer.
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Hello Pete, yes computers have changed our lives inside and outside our homes.
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In 2001 I thought the US had made and continued to make such positives steps in resolving social and economic issues and inequalities. I have had to admit that I was seeing the world through rose tinted glasses. It is disheartening to see the backward slide not only here but around the globe.
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Yes Marie it is very disheartening, we have to try and stay positive and put the rose tinted specs back on every now and then.
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Between 2000 and 2012, I bought my first mobile phone, a laptop, and a flat screen TV. Not much else changed in my life until I retired in 2012 and moved away from the life I had known in London. I still only used a phone as a phone, but now it was Smart. I changed the laptop to a PC and became a blogger, and that was a huge change in my life. Then I got a dog, and he changed my life in so many positive ways and made me genuinely happy. When he died almost a year ago, I felt lost. I still do.
Best wishes, Pete.
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It’s good that man’s oldest friend made such a change. Who would have guessed that blogging would become a way of life.
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My house still has telephone sockets in most of the rooms – partly for plugging in a landline phone and partly to connect a dial-up modem. Now I have no landline but connect my smart phone to the wifi and use that for calls etc. (no mobile signal here so I use Wifi calling) I also have a very old kindle tablet and a newish mac mini. The biggest change in the last 25 years was , of course, was the death of my husband on 2011 and the need to build a new life as a single woman. Tech has helped enormously in keeping in touch with family, starting blogging generally managing life.
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My kindle is coming up to its twelfth birthday so older than other electronic marvels… Yes being widowed is the big change and the start of a very different life. Thank goodness for tech.
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All the gadgets have changed on my communication devices, vehicles, appliances, and entertainment systems but the only important change has been the addition of five grandchildren into my life.
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Those are the good changes Geoff.
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Plastic bubbles, not yet ~ but we have seen the appearance of a number og highly mysterious monoliths, eerily similar to those in “2001.”
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I have heard about those monoliths. I suppose there are the plastic bubbles where scientists study people living in a dome pretending they are on another planet.
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Electric motor assisted mountain bikes came along at the perfect time in my life. I pedaled under my own steam for forty years, then went over to the dark side when I turned 70. Cell phones are handy but don’t come close to the feeling of having forty-year old legs again.
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Some things go in circles. When I was a child people used to have bikes with a motor fixed on. Electric bikes are popular. Our council has electric bikes and scooters you can borrow.
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Good grief, air fryers recording conversations, where will it all end!! I must admit, laptop type things and phones aside, I haven’t really jumped on the smart bandwagon and would more likely avoid it that rush out to embrace it. I haven’t got an air fryer as I’ve heard some negative things about them in terms of health problems they can encourage, despite the alleged health benefits…but I guess you never truly know.
I think a lot seems to have changed more rapidly in the past 5yrs because of the speed and pace compared to the span of the last 25 years, e.g:
>>Tech is now the norm rather than the fascinating ideal
>>AI is no longer the stuff of sci fi movies – far from it
>>Childhood looks very different, ‘maturity’ is more rapid and adult focused
…the list goes on, there has definitely been a noticeable paradigm shift 🧐
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Hello Cherryl, yes so many things I can’t keep up with or don’t want to. I still go out with my purse and bank cards and buy cardboard train tickets. Being techliterate is equivalent to being able to read once upon a time I guess.
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I embraced computers when they first because popular, and even went to night school to learn properly. 😀 That must be getting on for 50 years ago, and my current project is clearing out thousands of old emails from the original address as it’s running out of space.
Something like Messenger on Facebook is brilliant for being able to see and speak to friends and relatives all over the world, – the disadvantage is the growth of scammers.
Mobility issues mean I rarely get out so have no use for a Smart mobile phone, but these days it seems you can’t do anything without giving a mobile number, which I find really irritating.
I wonder what happened to all the people who were supposed to be living on the moon by now?
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Well done for being so quick on the uptake with computers. Yes Messenger is brilliant isn’t it, we have a rolling Christmas card across the world, seeing what all the family are doing. I probably do ten percent of what my phone can do, but amazing how quickly you take for granted that dentist is going to text a reminder to come for your appointment or the chemist will tell you your prescription is ready. But it’s awful when some poor old dear is told by the chemist she can get the NHS app to order her prescription. Perhaps there are people living on the moon in secret – story idea!
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what a great post! velcro was quite the thing in the 80s, especially in terms of men never being able to open their wallets quietly. so much has changed — I think the biggest one is the smart phone? when I watch movies, I date them as pre or post 2007 depending on the type of cell phone…
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Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. Yes the smart phone is certainly a top contender and I’m sure it has far more functions than the ones they used on Star Trek!
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😹
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