When do "modern times" begin for you?

[sojourner]

For me it's around the same year as the launch of the first shuttle. Around that time we had the star wars movies, mtv, personal computers and what I remember as just things being "current". Anything before that for me is "retro". I was too young in the 70's to be part of the "scene" and that decade and of course the decades that precede it just seem more like recent history than current events.

So, how far back feels "current" to you?

 

[Admiral Shran]

So, how far back feels "current" to you?

One second ago.

 

[scotpens]

Well, from a historic point of view, modern times began about 1400 or so. But I wasn’t around then.

What I think of as “my time” starts around 1960 (I was born in 1953). I’m a child of the the Atomic Age, the Space Age, the Cold War, and the declining fashion of tailfins on cars.

And to think some of you youngsters consider the ’80s to be “retro”! To me, that decade is recent history.

 

[Cicero]

Historically, I'd say sometime in the late 1700s; culturally, the early years of the Greatest Generation; and, personally, 1993 (for some reason, I associate modernity with the release of Jurassic Park).

When I realized that high schoolers no longer had more than vague ideas about the world - let along the exhilarations - of my childhood years, I for some reason starting seeing the present from an imagined historical perspective, thinking of our time as someone else's 1920s or 1880s, rather than our modern times. It's a sobering way of looking at things, and makes me feel rather old - perhaps because I've allowed yesterday to overtake tomorrow.

 

[captcalhoun]

March 1978.

Anything before that is BM. Before Me.

 

[Santaman]

1981, the day the IBM PC appeared.

 

[RJDiogenes]

This is actually an interesting question, with a number of possible answers depending on how you look at it. From my personal perspective, modern times would begin around the mid-60s, when I started to become aware of the world. From a historical perspective, an argument could be made for several milestones: The Renaissance, the American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution; I can even see younger people using the Internet Age as their marker. Right now, I'm inclined to think of anything post World War II as modern times; we are still living in the world as defined by the aftermath of that historical upheaval.

 

[Skellington]

Blu-rays are modern to me. Old-style DVDs I am forced to put in the "not modern" bracket since although I still very much use them they have been superseded. I guess that the application of the word varies depending on what aspect of human life is being examined. Houses don't become outdated as quickly as mobile phones, for instance.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

The late 19th/early 20th centuries. Many of the modern technologies we take for granted today had their genesis or proliferation during this era: the automobile, the airplane, routine trans-oceanic travel, steel-hulled cruise ships, telephones, lightbulbs, the phonograph, x-rays, the assembly line, machine guns, the ballpoint pen, film instead of photographic plates, motion pictures, radio, television, the modern steam turbine, the electrical power grid, and many more.

 

[Kemaiku]

The Industrial Revolution.

 

[Warped9]

Every morning when I wake up.

To many of the current generation anything older than six months is ancient history.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yeah, I'm with Bored on this one, but I'll be more specific: January 1, 1901, the first day of the 20th century. Yeah, it's somewhat arbitrary, but it's consistent with what he said, and easy to remember. Among the "many more": Einstein's publications in 1905, including his contributions to the groundwork of quantum theory (photoelectric effect), and the first part of his theory of relativity (special relativity), were both major milestones on the way to our harnessing of atomic energy.

 

[Warped9]

What we think of (and were taught) as modern times could well be redefined in the future as succeeding generations redefine the goalposts.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

To many of the current generation anything older than six months is ancient history.

Go back to yelling at the screen, pops.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OU1mW0Ty_Y&feature=player_embedded[/yt]

 

[Warped9]

To many of the current generation anything older than six months is ancient history.

Go back to yelling at the screen, pops.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OU1mW0Ty_Y&feature=player_embedded[/yt]

Sarcastic humour evidently eludes you.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

To many of the current generation anything older than six months is ancient history.

Go back to yelling at the screen, pops.

Sarcastic humour evidently eludes you.

That implies that what you said is somehow different from the opinions you express seriously on a regular basis.

 

[Warped9]

Go back to yelling at the screen, pops.

Sarcastic humour evidently eludes you.

That implies that what you said is somehow different from the opinions you express seriously on a regular basis.

 

[Braxton]

I think modern time should be classified as beginning with the rise of the automobile.

 

[cultcross]

I tend to think of 'current events' as anything post 2000. That convenient milestone is now over a decade ago but I will probably stick to it for some time as my definition of 'today's events'. I really don't want to be clichéd enough to say 9/11, but those first couple of years of the century built the world of today, imho. They were our shedding of the 90s and adopting a new world for a new century.

Another way of looking at it, for me, is that the current world came about with the rise of common use of the internet.

 

[MacLeod]

I would say the Modern era began around the time of the Industrial revolution i.e the 1700's.

As for the Contempary era that woiuld be around the start of the 20th Century.