When did the future shock you?

"I once presented my grandmother with a CD of insipid choral music while she was sitting out a bout in hospital," writes Michael Parsons in a comment article about the way technology can shock. "I proudly put the CD down on the hospital table in front of her, hoping she'd be pleased I'd remembered she liked it. She looked at in confusion, and said, "Does the music come out of that?"

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If you shill digital technologies for a living, it should be flattering to see that your predictions about the omnipresence of new technology are coming true. In fact it's not: it's a little disquieting. I once presented my grandmother with a CD of insipid choral music while she was sitting out a bout in hospital. I proudly put the CD down on the hospital table in front of her, hoping she'd be pleased I'd remembered she liked it. She looked at in confusion, and said, "Does the music come out of that?"

I was struck even at the time that her lack of understanding of this technology, what Alvin Toffler in the 1970s dubbed "future shock", was generational, seismic, and profound. I could explain to her that the CD went into the music player, as a record went on to a turntable, but she was not confused about how this music format worked. She couldn't even identify if it was a music format or a music player.

Of course we're not like that: we will never get poor, never get old and we will certainly never be overwhelmed by technology. Hell, I do this for a living. Yet when I walk into a branch of McDonald's and go upstairs to find that it has become an EasyInternet café, and I sit down and see that hovering beside my left ear is an advertisement for an iPod, I am bemused. When did low-end hamburger meet online experience and high-end consumer electronics?

Using a loo in a bar near where I live I study the poster above the urinal that advertises the new musical Spamalot, now appearing in the West End, "lovingly" ripped off from the Monty Python film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I zip up and turn away and a familiar fruity voice in a thick cod French accent blows a raspberry at me and says, "I fart in your general direction." The sign has a motion-activated sound effect triggered by my departure. When did urinal advertising start talking to me?

In the office, someone hums me a tune they can't get out of their head: they're pretty sure they've heard it on the soundtrack of one of their favourite video games. Smugly, I recognize it as Popcorn by Hot Butter – a maddeningly catchy one-note piece of electronic pop from the Seventies. Pleased that for once age is an advantage in negotiating the shark-infested waters of popular culture, I discover my memory is not required. A colleague has already logged on to Songtapper.com. This is a website that allows you to tap out the rhythm of a half-remembered song on your computer keyboard, and then pull up matches from a databases of songs. It finds a match with Popcorn. When did my keyboard learn pop songs of the 1970s?

Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, said that for him the moment of futureshock came when he was in the supermarket and saw that the little divider you plonk down to separate your shopping from someone else's at the check-out had been co-opted for use as a marketing tool: it had an ad on it. At such moments the mind reels: can they really do that? Is this really how it will be now?

When does your brain explode in collision with how things are? Drop me a line, I'd like to hear your stories.

Michael Parsons is Editor of CNET.co.uk, the personal technology and consumer electronics website. He was Editorial Director of the Industry Standard Europe and European correspondent for The Red Herring magazine, and spent five years working in Silicon Valley and worrying about technology. He can be reached at michael.parsons@cnet.co.uk

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