The 20th Century is marked by two world wars, which left hundreds of millions dead. The Great Depression hit the world's economy. The Cold War spanned nearly half of the century. The Korean War, Vietnam War, and many others blotted the pages of history. Psychology came into being, and artists and writers started to explore reality and rethought representing "truth". Einstein's theory of relativity, and then quantum mechanics also contributed to the uncertainty of being--reality is only as we perceive it.
However, the 20th Century is also known for its many innovations. The first airplane was flown in 1903, the television came into being in the late 1920s, man walked on the moon in 1969, computers and the internet were first created in the 1940s and 1960s, and the list goes on and on. Despite the depressing and terrible events of the 20th Century, mankind continued to prosper and change.
Something that strikes me is the fact that the world we live in right now, with internet, cell phones, satellite radio, cable television, laptops, and everything else that is simply part of our every day lives, has only existed for a few short years, at most a few decades. Like I said in my first post, when I'm an old grandmother, I'll tell my grandchildren in my craggly old-lady voice, "I remember when cell phones were the size of your head and they had antennas attached and only rich people owned them!" (see right) Our digital civilization is so new and still rapidly changing. At the exponential rate of invention in this age, I can only suppose that our world will be totally different in only a few years. And humans will simply change along with it. I think the digital devices we use shape us as much as we contribute to their production.
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