A Vision of Isolating Technology from 1906

Jul 27, 2016



Replace these "wireless telegraphs" with smartphones, update the dress a little, and this vision from a 1906 issue of Punch magazine could easily be for 110 years in the future. Part of a series of "forecasts" for the year to come, the caption reads: “These two figures are not communicating with one another. The lady receives an amatory message, and the gentleman some racing results.” It's a reminder that the idea of technology leading to a breakdown in "authentic" human interaction is a worry not solely limited to our age.
Punch seemed to have a knack for uncanny predictions of distant technologies to come. See for example this vision of the Skype-like "Telephonoscope" from 1879.