Changing Times

This past weekend, a young neighborhood Boy rang the door bell and asked, "Are you kinda old?"
I looked at the lad who is perhaps eleven years old and answered, "Buddy Boy, If you're looking for 'old' you got the right house."

The 5th grade kid has a social studies project, which requires him to find an old person who could tell him something about changes. In fact his exact question was "What do you think are the five biggest technological changes and the five biggest social changes in your life-time?" The boy told me the assignment is due April 8. The kid's coming back this Friday for my answers. I have two lists I'm going with but I'd be willing to consider changing an item if somebody offered a more significant 'change.' Oh, you need not be 'old' to jump in the game.

Technological Changes:

1) Space Travel...I remember the fall of 1957, when Russia accomplished that Sputnik launch. Boy, up until then travel in space was comic book stuff.
2) Communication...Folks, the first telephone I recall using was hanging on the wall and when I picked up the receiver, the operator lady said, "Number please." That's of course if the neighbors on  our 'party line' were not talking. Today, I tell my 'Smartphone to call 'whomever' and immediately I   got my connection. I can also text, messenger, email, etc.
3) Medical Procedures...It used to be that X-ray was the only peek into our body. These days there is every imaginable scope, Cat Scan, MRI, etc. and organ transplants, artificial pumps, prosthesis and robotic surgeries. And don't forget the on-slaught of medical drugs.
4) Satellite Navigational Systems: No longer do I need read road maps or worse attempt to re-fold them after use. I now speak into my auto's dashboard or type in an address and walla, some sweet talking lady tells me every turn to make and even welcomes me to another State when crossing state lines.
5) Google Research: Oh, my gosh! Where was Google when in the late 1950's, I was trying to complete a college research paper. Damn that 'Card Catelog Library.

Social Changes:

1) Women In Professions: The number of women in the media industry was nil. Only men held jobs i.e., Attorney, medical doctors, insurance sales, bankers and construction work. Slowly but surely the gender landscape opportunities is evening out.
2) Co-Habitation Before Marriage: Perhaps its driven by mores Changes or maybe its financially expedient. I don't know. Whatever.
3) 24/7 Cable News Networks: Once upon a time, Americans had three major television / radio networks, which reported a morning, noon hour and evening news broadcasts. The news seems so relentlessly negative that it feeds depression.
 4) Franchise Businesses: No longer do we have mom and pop drugstores, restaraunts and grocery stores. Instead, we have national company franchises.
5) Fractured Family: Perhaps driven by financial need or career preferences, the American family has both parents in the work place. This means that children are introduced to institutional care as early as infancy. From womb to room: Day Care, Pre School, Kindergarten and then twelve years of formal education often times offering supportive after-school programs to coincide with the end of the adult work day. The family dynamic has changed drastically in this old man's lifetime.

Okay, that's the list I'm prepared to give my neighbor boy. If anybody out there can  improve upon it please do so because I recall not doing so well academically in the fifth grade and I'd like redemption.