Ten Things That Will Disappear In My Lifetime

1. Love notes. Students are no longer taught “connected writing,” or cursive writing … so how do you write a love note? On twitter? Do you then soak your smartphone in perfume, or what?

2. Saturday morning cartoons. Now you can see them 24/7 … you don’t even need a TV station to stream them on your mobile screen … and kids often have their own. Back in the day, I had to rush to do my Saturday morning chores so I could watch cartoons on the only day of the week they were available. Ah, memories.

3. Buying entertainment media at a store. Record stores: gone. Book stores: gone. Video stores: gone. Who needs them when you download everything?

4. The paper check. I bought a Paypal reader today that will allow you to simply tap it with your enabled smartphone to pay for your purchase from Mrs. M’s Handmade. That’s all: you just tap your smartphone on my reader, and the tap authorizes a secure, encrypted payment. Who would want to deal with a check?

5. Prime time. Gone are the days when the family needs to sit down together to watch their favorite program. “8 o’clock Eastern, 7 Central” no longer means anything. Remember “Must See TV?” Remember only having one television in the house? Remember a family watching network television together? Faint memories, at best. Network television has been irrevocably changed, and we will soon be in a 100% on demand world. The cord cutters already are.

6. The Game Of The Week. As network television has changed from “the big 3” networks having a monopoly on the small screen, sports television has exploded as a vehicle that demands live viewership and premium advertising rates. Back in the day, there was ONE college football game televised each week. Now, they broadcast on multiple networks on multiple days each week. It’s truly an amazing transformation … that pays for a multi-million dollar sports infrastructure on hundreds of college campuses. However, student athletes get no direct compensation. Coaches do pretty well, though.

Maryville, MO, 1958.

7. Photographs. 20% of all photographs taken today are posted on Facebook. In 1930, 1 billion photos were taken each year. Today, 380 billion photos are taken annually. And with that … printed photographs are disappearing at an alarming rate. All of those electronic selfies that are being taken today – will be where in 50 years? In a 100? Will we have printed photographs of our families in 50 years? I think not. Those will disappear.

8. Retail Mom & Pop shops. How will small stores survive the onslaught of online retailing? They won’t. Big chains of stores may find a way to survive (just not if they’re named Montgomery Ward). Little stores? They will largely disappear. Oh, some Mom & Pop stores will survive, especially in small towns. Perhaps “long tail of retail” specialty shops – extreme specialty shops – will survive as well. But, by and large, small retail operations with brick and mortar stores will become increasingly rare.

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” – Thomas Jefferson

9. Journalism. The fourth estate was supposed to keep the politicians honest. Journalists were to be the beacon of truth in a confusing world. Today? They’re merely another advocacy group with an agenda that is all too frequently hidden, and all too frequently fiercely defended as “actual” truth. The result is that people don’t believe anything … except Donald Trump, apparently. It will be fascinating to see if his candidacy continues to thrive. I wonder how many people understand that there is a substantial percentage of the common man that is desperate to be told the truth … and doesn’t believe anyone from the political establishment on the right or the left is doing so?

10. Privacy. I needed to reserve a camping space in a National Park a couple of years ago, so I took an off-the-grid, no cellphone, no way to contact me vacation for 2 days. I hiked into the backcountry, miles from anyone, with no one knowing where I had gone, by myself. That’s privacy. How often does that happen to you? Velda’s begun making beard oil as a new product for Mrs M’s Handmade … and now, when she’s online, she sees ads for beard oil EVERYWHERE. Thankfully, she’s not a good prospect to make a purchase … but the beard oil retailers have found her. Privacy? It no longer exists.