As older people I think we are more aware of time and the changes that it brings with it. When I was a child newspapers were well established, including the advertising of specials. I remember my father saying that he could find out what he would be eating the following week from the specials advertised in the local newspaper!
Television was to take off a bit later, when I was in my teens. Modern communication, such as through computers and iPhones were nowhere in sight, except as a twinkle in the eye of a future inventor.
I don’t know if this is why younger people really take up the latest development in this field more easily than older people who just see them as the latest in the long line of development of communication methods. One of the reasons why terrorist groups use them so easily, and recognise their potential is probably because they can see the advantages, and different possibilities in using them, to further their cause. Unfortunately these people are on the dark side of humanity and their acceptance of, and ability to see the possibilities in the use of modern communication devices really helps to spread their message. To me this is a lost opportunity for people on the more humane side.
I was reminded of this with the story of the ordinary man, I can’t remember which country he was from but it wouldn’t have made any difference as he could have been from anywhere, who sent out a message about putting his cricket bat out in front of his gate to help his grief over the loss of the young Australian cricketer. He was just an ordinary man with an ordinary, but special, message. Within a very short space of time it had spread across the world and people from so many countries, particularly the cricket-loving ones, were fishing out their cricket bats and putting them out in front of their gates. It spread from Kirribilli House in Sydney to cricket fans in the UK and so many more places.
It was really heart warming to realise that this relatively new technology can spread so quickly, and probably more efficiently, the more humane messages as well as those of hatred and violence. This is what we should be learning to do instead of leaving it to the darker side of our humanity to see, and use, the possibilities of the latest gadget. Phillip Hughes did not die in vain.