5 years ago my oldest daughter was bugging me. 

Multiple times a day she was asking if she could have a camera for Christmas. As the holiday approached the frequency reached an unbearable crescendo. I was breaking down and she knew it. In a way that only she could, she flipped the conversation to ask about different kinds of cameras I had owned over the years. As I listed off a few, I pulled out an older camera to show her different features. As I opened a slot to show her where we used to put film, she asked me a simple question that’s had a huge impact on my world view:

What’s film?

I was reminded of her question the other day when my younger kids were asking to play with my iPhone or iPad. Their older siblings used to ask for Teletubbies or Dora the Exlplorer because, well, there were no iPhones or iPads when they were little.

I was reminded of her question when I saw this posted to Quora the other day and the answers it generated:

 What was daily life like before almost everyone had cell phones?

 I’m 25, so I remember some of it pretty well, but I was never an adult in the time period before ubiquitous cell phones (so I don’t have the same perspective)…What was life/the world like then? Home phones? Answering machines? No one talking/texting in public? What else?

And I was reminded of her question yesterday at Y Combintor demo day when the younger entrepreneurs were far more proud of the colleges they’d dropped out of than those who had issued them degrees.

There’s a new generation that’s on the rise. Their expectations, understanding and perceived value of technology is very different than any other that has come before them. My hope is that they can rise high enough to meet the emerging opportunities generations before them have made possible.