Technology seems to advance faster with every day that goes by, so much so that it’s hard to keep up sometimes. We end up getting lost in our own worlds and our own heads so much that we don’t take the time to realize how incredible some of the things we use every day are.
A lot of incredibly important technology came to be in just the past century or so. These are some of the technological advances we often take for granted as we go through our daily lives.
Airplanes and Flight
We often say the phrase, “What a small world,” but back before commercial flights were a thing, the world was a lot smaller for most people. Planes and other machines that can fly are actually still a fairly recent technology, and they allow us to see so much more of the world.
Back in the day, most people’s entire worlds comprised only the towns they were born in. Now, we can see so much more of the world, and many of us don’t realize how new that still is.
Vacuum Technology
That vacuum cleaner you have stashed away in your closet somewhere has way more going on inside of it than you realize. Saying the word vacuum conjures images of the cleaning devices, but the concept of a vacuum itself is fascinating to consider. So many industries use vacuum technology, the power of nothingness, in so many incredible ways — and yet we can use it for such a mundane task as cleaning our homes.
Video Calls
A very popular technology we often take for granted is making video calls to people we care about. For most of human history, if someone moved far away, it was unlikely you would ever see their face again. Nowadays, families and friends can go their separate ways and still stay in touch and even talking face-to-face at the push of a button.
Search Engines
Finding the exact information you needed for something used to be much more difficult than it is today. Now, people whip out their phones and use search engines at the drop of a hat.
That kind of access to an infinite library of knowledge is so incredible to consider when you remember that people once had to use almanacs, atlases and encyclopedias to learn anything. Before those, you just had to be okay with not knowing something because information was so much harder to find.
GPS
The days of people getting lost and yelling at each other over paper map directions are almost entirely gone. GPS seems like such a mundane part of everyday life, but consider that there are a bunch of extremely advanced satellites orbiting the planet that can instantly find you almost anywhere at a moment’s notice.
In light of that, you may begin to understand how absolutely amazing it is that we can always know where we are.
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