A Week in the Past - the Pace of Innovation

Today I'd like to discuss a story I've heard a few times that's related to the impact of Innovation. It's about a school project where students and their families had to spend one week living the way people lived in a year of their choosing. I'm not sure if this was an actual school project or a fictional story to illustrate a point. If someone knows or can find references to the story, please comment on this post.

The way I've heard the story is that one of the students chose a year around 1984. Many people's initial reaction to hearing of the year chosen is that of surprise. When hearing about the assignment they expect that for this to be an interesting exercise, you would need a much earlier era or a year of notable historical impact- such as a year during the Great Depression (1929 - 1939) or one of the gold rush periods (1849, 1886), for example. The frequent question is something along the lines of: "1984- So what's the big deal?"

And that's when it gets interesting. Because when you think about just going back 20 or so years and all that you'd have to give up, you realize the tremendous number of luxuries and life-changing innovations you've grown to rely on. I've made a short list here of just a few of the innovations with which the student had a hard time convincing his family to part:

1. Cell Phone
2. The Internet
3. CDs/ DVDs (CDs were invented just a little earlier, but were just beginning to get distributed. DVDs weren't invented until 1995)
4. PDAs
5. Tivo
6. Ipod
7. Automatic Toll Paying Devices (EasyPass or Ipass devices)
8. Starbucks

Even over just 20 years, the impact of innovation on our daily lives has been enormous.