Off the grid

I saw an advertisement for  a documentary about  a man who goes off the grid. He gets rid of all of his electronics and all of his access to technology, and he just lives a green lifestyle.

For a second, I thought, that sounds rather remarkable for today. But in 1874, that would have just been normal. No one would have even conceived of the idea of electricity, television, smartphones, or many of the things we have now. Living off the grid is simply what everybody did.

But if you lived in the 1870s, there was a pretty good chance that if you made it to 80 years old, you lived into the 1950s and had the opportunity to see television, airplanes, telephones, and cars—things that weren’t around at the beginning of your life.

The same thing happened in my lifetime. When I was born, there was no internet. There were no smartphones. And now there are.

Today, going off the grid is something remarkable. Having time without a device is something remarkable. Advertisers promote camps where people can go device-free. But when I was born in 1972, no one would have even conceived of such a thing. There was no need to retreat from something that didn’t yet exist.

So what about people born today?

What will it be in 50 years that they need to retreat from that we don’t even have now? What future technology, convenience, or way of living will become so common that escaping it will feel remarkable?

That’s the interesting thing about being human. We adapt so quickly to our present that we forget how strange it might seem to people from the past—and how strange our future might seem to us.

What do you think people born today will need a break from fifty years from now that doesn’t even exist yet?