Shortly after my mother’s 89th birthday I called her landline via Skype. It was our last such communication ever. Don’t worry, mom’s fine. Skype, however, is as dead as the dire wolf. Deader, probably, because nobody is trying to figure out how to bring Skype back. My mother was born before humans discovered how to use antibiotics and she’s still going. Skype was born in 2003 and only just made it past 20 years. 

Technological change is inevitable, but given the current manic pace of innovation, we are more accustomed to experiencing this as the arrival of shiny new tools, not the departure of useful (if slightly simplistic) old ones. When my grandmother was born, there were no planes. When my mother was born, there were no transistors. When I was born, there were no mobile phones. Those technologies are still going strong. In 2019 Skype was declared one of the top 10 most downloaded apps of the 2010s, above TikTok and YouTube and Twitter. That’s only six years ago. I haven’t even been to the gynecologist since then. 

Advertisement

Advertisement

Is there a word for the sense of loss you experience when you outlive a technology that changed your life? I know some people feel enough nostalgia for BlackBerrys and Sony

© Time