How technology has eased the path

In this information-ready era, there are so many things that our children will never have to face, that we did.

1. Mum not having a clue how to do a French braid. There's Youtube. And now she's watched the French braid video, you can browse together the many other complicated braiding possibilities. Many!
2. Going to the public library to get a book out on a topic for a project at school, only to find that there were two relevant books, and guess what? They've both been taken out by other children. Because there were two books and thirty children. 
3. Not knowing what a rude word means. Not finding it in the dictionary. Being too embarrassed to ask your Mum or a friend. That's what Google is for. It might not even be a rude word. Just a super-cool one. Urban Dictionary will tell you.
4. Not getting a joke. Why is everyone laughing, and you didn't understand it? Again, Google.
5. Sitting in a cafe on your own. Whether it was filling in time, or waiting for a late friend, there used to be an exquisite awkwardness about being on your own in a cafe. Do you nip out and buy a newspaper to read? Or do you carry a paperback in your handbag, for just such moments as this? Do you fiddle endlessly with your coffee? Do you go to the loo - again - to fill in a few minutes? This next generation will never have to worry. They have their phones.
6. The indecision as to whether to buy a Filofax or not. Filofaxes polarised us. They were either the ultimate cool, showing that you had lots of friends - in fact, so many of them that you had to spend serious money on a leather-bound book to keep all their details in. Or they were just too cliche for words, and you stuck with your old address book, which had a picture of Salisbury Cathedral on the front. There was no half-measure. Either you were a Filofax person, or you weren't. But whichever you were, you were expected to show great sympathy when you heard the story of someone's friend or sister who had lost their Filofax, or had it stolen. All those friends' details stored carefully between the leather covers, gone! I suppose that is one thing that has been carried forward into the technological era, and intensified. The lost phone. That must be much worse than the lost Filofax.
7. Endless conversations devoted to giving directions. How did we manage before mobile phones? 
8. The need to be punctual. If you couldn't contact the person you were meeting, then being 5 or maybe 10 minutes late was ok, but you wouldn't expect them to be happy for longer than that (see 5 above). No mobile phones meant no potential for last-minute apologies, or re-arranging of venue to fit in with your inefficient travel plans. Maybe this one is a loss rather than a gain of modern life.

Can you think of any others?

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