I read a lot of nostalgic guff about how good the good old days were. This is particularly popular with that generation who grew up in the 1970's, the tail-end of the baby boomers. I am one of that group.

Invariably, posts include long-gone phenomena like milk bars, record players, tape decks, kids running in the streets, Holdens and Fords, folks sitting in front of black and white four-channel-only TV's, and so on. Often there will be a meme with some sarcastic remark about how the current crop would be hopelessly out of their depth in such a paradise.

Now, readers of this blog (surely none - ed.) will know that I have a black spot in my memory when it comes to the first half of the only-too-heavenly seventies. But I know enough about human nature and I read enough about that period to realise that this is just another manifestation of a very old circumstance. The old have forever pilloried the young and bemoaned how change has ruined everything.

Now sure, the world we confront today seems more out of control than it once did. The Cold War had it's own curious certainties that made it palatable, though not for me. The lack of anything other than a fixed phone line meant people had to make the effort to see each other. Gossip in the street or at a friend's house passed for what today is a flood on social media. Everything seems faster and because of innovations in technology, there is a whole lot more information coming from everywhere.

So there are grounds for thinking that there is a kind of overload taking place when people hark back to 'simpler times'. I can't blame them for it but I would argue strongly the case for developing discernment, the capacity to winnow the wheat from the chaff. I love the instant information I can get through the web, but I remain alert to it's accuracy and provenance. I cast a wary eye over much that passes for news - some of it out-and-out infotainment - and generally try to keep my wits about me.

Become discerning and you will worry less and live more in the present. There are lots of things about the 1970's that I could joyfully list, some of which are now lost. The same can be said of now - human nature doesn't change - and one day in the future, extinction events permitting - today's young will mourn a similar loss, if only for want of another pair of tinted glasses.