We have come a long way in seven decades, but one writer’s two-week experiment suggests we may be better off going back. In 1957, Harold MacMillan famously proclaimed “most of our people have never had it so good”, but he clearly hadn’t yet received his new iPhone 16 Pro . Seven decades on – with a mere touch on a six inch glass screen – I can order my dinner (pizza or sushi this evening?) to arrive at my front door within minutes.
I can read a book, watch a film , do a puzzle, play a game. Never again do I need to turn an A to Z upside-down to find my way. I’m able to pay my bills, organise my banking, and even monitor my heart rate through a tiny piece of tech.
There’s no need to worry about my son, 20, who’s studying for a year in Vietnam : I can track his progress by watching a little pulsing blob traverse the streets. No cause to wait anxiously for a blue airmail envelope to arrive: Jacob can ring me for free, without navigating operators or satellite-delays. Surely, life in the 2020s is so much better than life in the Fifties (until your battery runs out, that is)?.
