alt Hacker NewsI occasionally notice that people younger than me seem more impressed by smartphones than me (and I assume, maybe incorrectly, my generation).
One theory I have for this is that younger people are taught by teachers, when they are at an impressionable age, to revere the smartphone as the pinnacle of human achievement.
To me, the smartphone impressed me for a couple years, but it's just one of many miracles of miniaturization I've lived through - and less qualitatively different than, for example, personal computers or the GUI or the internet going public.
My father noticed a similar phenomenon with Rock n Roll. People younger than him saw it as a musical sea-change, but to him it just sounded like the boogie woogie music the radio already had been playing for a decade.
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> One theory I have for this is that younger people are taught by teachers, when they are at an impressionable age, to revere the smartphone as the pinnacle of human achievement.
Probably over-analyzing this, but I can see why this might happen:
1. There's an ulterior motive of getting them to treat it safely, as it's one of the more-expensive and breakable things they might be carrying around, and they become obstreperous if it is unavailable.
2. It's probably the most immediate and tangible candidate. They probably aren't going to be around MRI scanners or cryo-cooled qubits or whatever.
I'm 40 and very impressed by smartphones.
Back in my day, we had a separate (wired) telephone, a camera, a notepad, paper maps, a walkman, and a million other things. Now I just have a phone and it can do all that and lots more.