November 30: Two sides to the technological revolution

I WONDER how many of your readers – of a more ‘mature’ age – can ever remember a famous film made in the 1930s, starring Raymond Massey, and called Things to Come?.

I well remember watching it – fascinated! – on our first black and white TV, way back in the mid 1950s. Of course, at that time it was only about 20 years old. It didn’t seem dated then.

It sowed the germ of interest in me as to how the future – especially my own – would develop. Little did I realise then, just how quickly new technology would transform my life and our world. Computers, social 
media and the internet were unheard of. People actually wrote ‘letters’ and very few had a telephone.

Schooling was still in the Victorian era. Teachers could use slippers and the cane with impunity.

That technological revolution has happened and is still happening. There is always a positive side and a negative side to most things as we are now finding out, especially with the grooming of children for sick sexual purposes.

The internet can be a
great asset and a terrifying monster. We’ve invented something that seems to be controlling us.