How Far World has Come, MSN, Mobile & Facebook

I remember being a young boy growing up in Renmark, when jumping online at a friends house (using dialup, of course) and signing into Messenger used to be the BEST thing in the world.

Webpages were these blurry things, and chat rooms were quickly becoming the best thing since sliced bread. My msn was full of people I knew from school, and slowly began filling up with people I talked to often from chatrooms. Soon my list had more contacts than the public library had books.

Only recently have a trimmed that down, now to having just under a dozen contacts. But, in saying that, I still speak to a lot of people.

I have over 1100 contacts on facebook, plus my small hanful on msn. I have contacts on myspace, Bebo, Twitter, Britekite, Flickr, Google, and many many forums that I’m part of.

While my use of msn messenger has decreased heaps!- my use of webpage based chat services & email has gone up more than I would have ever thought.

Not a day goes bye that I don’t talk to someone using Facebook chat, or I get an email (either to one of my 6 email addresses, or via myspace/facebook ‘message’).

Compared to what life used to be like, especially now with the introduction of Broadband years ago, things have really changed.

I now even have this blog, which since its beginning has had literally thousands of visitors. Yet another way I can communicate with people.

The other part of my life, when dealing with communication, that has changed would be my use of a mobile phone.

I got my mobile when I was in year 6 at school. Yes, it was a brick. A green brick that used to show 3 lines of text. I lvoed that phone. It was given to me by a friend of the family for my birthday, as my own parents wouldn’t buy me one.

I used to buy my own credit from working on the block (picking grapes/apples/peaches/apricots/oranges + pruning vineyards + cutting apricots/peaches, etc etc)

As soon as I turned 18 I got my self a contract, and I can say I haven’t regretted it since.

I know that a lot of people are anti-plans, but I really don’t mind. I’m careful enough to plan out my budget to include payments, and it has helped me upgrade my handset when I wanted to, to what I wanted to.

I used to go through about $30 every 2-3 weeks on calls & messages. That wasn’t too bad. Keepin mind that I don’t usually call people, but message.

I know go through more than $500 per month (thank god I’m on a cap) in just messaging. Literally, thousands of messages every month, plus internet, etc.

So no wonder lots of people get sick of me messaging them

I just thought I’d do this post, because it really amazed me, thinking back today about how things were about 10 years ago, even less.

In another 10 years, how far will we have progreesed, especially heading into the forcasted recession.

Sure, cures for cancer & other such things will be the next miracles, but what technological advancements will they make?