The Future Is Now

I've been pretty astounded lately by how advanced life these days has become. At the risk of sounding old, recently, I've been thinking about how actually miraculous the things of today would seem if I had known them as a kid.

Imagine a crazed man from the future shows up in a DeLorean to give you a glimpse of the the world looks like when you're an adult. What do you think would freak you out the most?

A few things have seemed extra 'miraculous' to me lately, so I thought I would jot them down. I've tried to stay away from just saying "the internet." While I think the internet would surprise us, as a child of the late 80's, I actually think the Internet would have made sense to me back then. Heck, all the sci-fi movies had people connected through a giant virtual network...why wouldn't it actually exist in the
future? It also seems pointless since quite a few things on my list are internet-produced items.

In the comments below, share one or two things that you think would have blown your mind if you had known about them when your eleven-years old.

• NETFLIX - I think this would freak me out the most. "Wait, wait, wait...they mail movies to your house?" "You click a button and watch them instantly?" We've come a long way from driving to a store to rent movies. (Or in my family's case, rent a VCR.)
  
  
• GPS - This would have scared 13-year old me. In fact, it probably would have been the most "Big Brother" moment for me personally. It still freaks me out a little bit. Unless I'm lost and need to find an address.
  
  
• DOWNLOADABLE MUSIC - I was a music addict as a kid. Seeing that I could buy "CDs" instantly any time I wanted (without technically handing somebody a wad of bills) would have blown my mind. It most definitely would have proved that future was awesome.
  
  
• THE 24-HR CARTOON CYCLE - I sound like an 80-year old man when I talk about this to my kids: "In my day, we had one day to watch cartoons. One day! It was Saturday! We couldn't just turn on TV any time day or night and watch our favorite cartoons. Be grateful!" Not that I'm here in the future, I'm not so sure it's a great thing. If I see another episode of Pokemon, somebody's getting kicked.
  
  
• YOUTUBE - This would have appealed to my 18-year old self. The notion of creating and owning your own content as well as the means to distribute it would have been huge to me when I was figuring out that I wanted to make my life by creativity. I might not have understood the "how," but I would have jumped at the chance to start uploading videos.

Your turn! What about "today" would have freaked out the you of "yesterday"?