I’ve been thinking about the ways Stellan’s world is going to be different from mine. He’ll never be lost. GPS will be ubiquitous. Cellphones will be ubiquitous, or some equivalent personal electronic device will be ubiquitous. It will take special effort for someone to not be aware of where they are or how to most quickly get to the nearest whatever it is they need. When he reaches that age when kids are curious about everything and start asking questions like “why is the sky blue,” it’ll be really clear which questions have answers and which don’t. Emily and I won’t have to fake it, ever: why’s the sky blue, let’s look that up on the internet. What happens after you die, that’s a different kind of question. Television will never be broadcast on channels, at a specific time. Cliffhangers will lose a lot of efficacy. What else is going to change?
We’ll always know where he is, too.
Physical location will be no barrier to keeping in touch with anyone (for the most part).
Anything he cares to create can, and likely will, be published for the whole world to see, and in the process effectively archived forever - he will have a very difficult time escaping his past.
“he will have a very difficult time escaping his past.”
Especially true in his case. We should’ve named him John Smith, or something equally hard to google….
Having on-line friends that he’s never met in person will be perfectly normal.