The "Extinction Timeline"

It's always interesting to think about what the future will hold. With the changes we see, especially in technology, it should come as no surprise that tools which we use every single day—and possibly have for our entire lives—will be replaced, possibly sooner than we had expected.


Can you remember when the prediction was that one day, record stores would no longer carry "LPs." The stores would be stocked exclusively compact discs. I thought, "No way." Today, many people under 30 have never seen an LP.

A full 10 years into my teaching career, good advice to every student was to always carry a quarter in case of the need to make a phone call. Good luck finding a pay phone today.

What will be the next staple of today's world that will become tomorrow's dinosaur?

The link below will take you to a graph running from 1950-2050. You can look to see what has become extinct in the last 60 years. The real fun comes in looking looking ahead the next 40. 

Click here to view the "Extinction Timeline."

I had to zoom in on the graph in order to really read the text. There is a great deal of food for thought there.

What predictions do you see that surprise you?