Advancements at the Speed of Light

In the article When Old Myths Were New: The Ever-Ending Story by Vincent Mosco, we are reminded of the numerous technologies (telegraph, radio, television, ect.) that have been claimed to be "history-ending" technologies and advancements. Mosco defines these technologies as "history-ending" because they are inventions that we believed were so revolutionary that they "ended time, space, and social relations as we have known them." We believed that they were the solution to our all of our problems. While these technologies were undoubtedly life changing, many of them were soon replaced with the next great invention that was given the same label as the previous one. While reading this article, I could not stop thinking of how technological advances are more rapid today than ever before, and if we have in some ways changed our thinking about how we view new technology. While the internet is known to be a technology that has undoubtedly changed the world, I believe that we will someday look back at this technology as one that is only a precursor to another that will be just as monumental as this one has been. When earlier technologies, such as the telegraph, were introduced, it was hard to imagine a new invention that would trump the previous one. Today, we expect new, cutting edge technologies to be developed. The leaps and bounds that once took years, even decades to achieve seem to be happening faster now than ever before. Is this outlook an outcome of our rapidly changing technology? I think one of the easiest ways to see the rapidly changing technology is to look at wireless phones and to think of our attitudes towards the changes we see today. I would have to argue that we no longer see our advancements as "history ending" as we once did but more as a progression towards the next technology.