I was reminiscing last week. Yes, despite not having yet hit the big ‘Four 0’ and always trying to keep focused on the road ahead, even I am tempted to reminisce from time to time. What prompted this particular introspective dip into the memory banks was a conversation I had with my 11-year-old son.

He was telling me about a computer whizz in his primary school class, who built a private social media network for his school buddies from scratch. I don’t mean that they all signed up to a private Facebook page. This kid, at age 11, actually built a social media network. 

Having picked my jaw up off the floor and attempted to digest this rather startling fact, I was prompted to think about the exponential rate of development of technology that I have witnessed in my lifetime. And the thought of how far and fast things have moved almost put the frighteners on me.

Over the past few months I’ve been dipping my toes into the world of Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. While it’s easy enough to seem like you know what you’re doing, the reality is that I just about hang on by the seat of my pants for the ride! 

I can definitely remember pre-Twitter and Google+, but pre-Facebook is a bit harder. I was an early adopter of Skype back in 2004 when it had less than 500,000 users, mostly because I worked in a university research lab with IT geeks. 

I can’t really imagine now not being able to connect with family all over the world by video. It’s just there. It’s also not too difficult to remember before my phone was a smartphone, but I’m not sure if I’d really cope or even want to try coping without the instant accessibility to the online world that smart technology has brought. 

Now things start to get tricky, and it’s not because my MMSE is anything less than 30! I only have a vague recollection of buying my first mobile phone. My wife and I decided to take the plunge when she was half way through her first pregnancy. I know it was in 2001 because my daughter is now 13. 

Trying to explain to the very same daughter that mobile phones did not always exist – well good luck! I’ve tried, and I’m not entirely convinced she can conceive of a world without them. 

And then we come to email. Now I really have to dig deep into the memory banks. I am nowadays ubiquitously embedded within Gmail and have quite a number of email accounts. My life is completely interconnected through various Google platforms including Google+ and YouTube. And yet I sometimes forget that Google is only 15 years old. Try and remember the world pre-Google. When you last did an internet search, was it a Google search? Most likely it was. The term Google has even inveigled itself into the consciousness of humanity, much in the same way as Hoover did when it comes to vacuum cleaners, except in a somehow more profoundly pernicious manner. 

That aside, I do have vague recollections of setting up a Hotmail account way back in 1996. Before that I remember going to the library to sift through Index Medicus and paying to order select and precious journal papers. For those of you under 35 I suggest Googling Index Medicus. Those of you over 40 will know what I’m talking about. 

Finally, my reminiscing takes me right back to my impoverished student days when once a week I would take my precious and rapidly emptying £50 Eircom phone card and stand in the queue, more often than not in the pouring rain, at the local public phone box to ring Italy for that priceless weekly call to my darling girlfriend (who incidentally is now my darling wife).

Funny, instead of bringing back good memories, that actually wasn’t so wonderful after all! Considering the reality of those days, give me Skype and Google Hangouts and Facebook any day of the week. 

I suppose the truth is that I’ll just try and learn from my children, do my best not to get left behind, and continue to wing it. 

Regardless of the technology, the truth is that my generation won’t stop turning it off to have a chat and the craic with a coffee or pint next time we meet our friends. 

And I just hope, regardless of the seemingly interwoven manner in which large technology companies such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo have slipped themselves into the fabric of existence of the Western world, that my children will not have to turn to memories and reminiscing to recall having the craic over a real chat, real coffee or a real pint!