Instant Excitement - no more waiting

Sitting in a coffee shop in our new home city of Doha, my two children (Cee and Tee) started acting up as only five and three year olds can - very cutely posing behind their raspberry crushes.

Quick as a flash, my wife pulled out our digital camera and captured the moment. Equally fast, Cee and Tee crowded round to see the pictures of themselves. Instantly excited at seeing their images on screen, ready to be zoomed, cropped or rotated.

This got me thinking about my own childhood and the thrill of photography. We certainly weren't a family of avid snappers but there was always excitement at the thought of taking and viewing photos. However, the excitement was always prolonged as we first had to wait for a role of film to be used up (we typically didn't take more than a few shots at a time) and then to be processed - something which seemed to take days although I'm sure it didn't.

Once, I recall, some family friends arriving with a Polaroid camera - with the ability to view, almost instantly, the captured image. But this was a disappointment as the images were small and rather grainy - and we still had to wait (although minutes (still felt like hours) rather than days).

I guess we are all now familiar with the reduced "cycle times" that come with new technologies - air versus sea travel, email versus snail mail - but, even for someone who works closely with technology, I still sometimes marvel at the speed and power now available to the "everyday technology user".

So why is this important? Well, for starters my children will never experience the leisurely pace of my childhood. Their pace of life is innate for them - but will be sluggish by comparison to the velocity of their children's lives. And secondly, in our busy and hurried lives, I believe there's value in sometimes sitting back to really appreciate what we can now do. And the fact that life is, by and large, better as a result.

Cee & Tee's grandparents in Australia and the UK love receiving photographs of their grandchildren, by whatever medium, but I know that for young and old alike, instant playback and distribution (via email or mobile messaging) is a small but welcome improvement in life.