Recency Bias

. . . Kurzweil still liked to show pictures of Martin Cooper walking around holding the world’s first cell phone back in 1973. The thing was huge -- like a giant loaf of bread with an antenna on it -- and hardly worked at all. But the next you know, flip phones are everywhere looking just like the Star Treak communicator. Then Apple invents the smartphone, which quickly becomes much more than a phone. Suddenly everyone is carrying around a handheld computer linked to the Cloud with all of its untold knowledge and information right that at their fingertips. Early on, the idea of lugging around some big clunking phone would have seemed like the world’s stupidest idea. Kurzweil would often smile wryly at this. Because soon, people found they could’t imagine life without these things. And then they would say, “Ahh, that’s not really a big deal; it’s been around for years,” they feel that way beause of something called recency bias, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recency_bias#:~:text=Recency%20bias%20is%20a%20cognitive,before%20being%20dismissed%20to%20deliberate. the sense that new thing is quickly perceived as old hat because it’s become no indispensible. Think of fax machines, microwaves, streaming television, and car doors that open with a gesture. 130