From a planet to a marble

No matter the age or gender of a person you meet today they are either currently using or will shortly be using something not even imaginable even 20 years ago. The age of data started in the very late 20th century and has exploded ever since. The internet has linked people once separated by thousands of miles. The world has once again shrank, much in the same way as other technologies did so in the past, only this time, the world has shrunk to an indeterminable speck.
The world has shrunk many times over the course of human history, major inventions always lead the way. The large wooden ships of the Renaissance, the steam locomotive of the industrial age, and the internet spanning the globe in the age of data.
Ships started the whole shrinking process when they finally left Europe and started sailing across vast oceans in search of new wealth and ways to cut out middlemen. when the sailors finally returned home, they brought with them fantastic tales of far off lands, of creatures never seen before. The sailors also brought with them money, gold, treasures, valuable objects that pushed exploration to the limits, to map the globe. It wasn't the thirst for what was out there that drove the explorers, it was the thirst for money.
The steam train is another one of those fantastic inventions that again shrank the world. With the creation of the transcontinental railroad, the time it took to travel from the east to the west coasts of America plummeted from 6 months by stagecoach to a little over a week. They provided a way to transport goods and people to where they were needed. Railroads sprung up everywhere and remained a prominent part of human commerce and life until the ubiquity of air travel.
Finally we come to the present day. The internet finally shrank the world to nothing more than a single point. Now, no two people are farther away than a simple instant message. People interact with other people in real time, without any delay, without any impedance, save university internet. The world has shrank for the last time. Its evident in everything that we do, from our internet habits to how we simply even talk on the phone. We know that we are never that far away from anyone, and in some cases it is comforting, and in others frightening.

This is how it happened

The art of storytelling is one that has captivated human audiences since before the dawn of civilization. For thousands of years, anywhere there was a fire or a settlement, stories were being exchanged. They could have been about the last hunt, or a story of whatever deity the people believed in at the time, the specifics we will never know. The tales may have offered visions of an individual's mind, a caution, a learning experience, or about the heroics someone offered on the battlefield. It was a transfer of knowledge, from one generation to the next, and it worked just fine for several thousand years.
However in the time that I have at least been alive, I have heard of very few of these tales. Of course we hear the occasional cautionary tale when we are little, but once we reach a certain age, we almost have to learn for ourselves. Fiction still exists, but rarely do you see a group of high school kids sitting around making up a story for pure entertainment. In my time here in college (less than 3 weeks mind you), I think I have heard more stories relating to the subject that I did in my entire 4 years of high school. But what bothers me most that has disappeared are the war stories passed on. Stories that told of battles fought far from home, of leaders we never knew but somehow understood. Epic tales of campaigns that lasted years, perhaps decades, all gloriously told entirely by word of mouth.
I think these tales have started to fade, leading to gaps in history. War is no longer as honorable a profession it once was. I suppose this is both a good and bad thing. Instead, the honor has been replaced by trauma and psychological damage. Today you would be hard pressed to find a veteran of the Vietnam Conflict who would be willing to tell his story. In stark contrast, two hundred years ago, a Revolutionary War Veteran might tell the same story of the same battle over and over again ad nauseum. The history lost to the trauma of war must be tremendous over the years, but from where I stand, the loss of history only seems to be getting worse, despite the advent of the Internet and widespread technology.
What will the next generation listen to when sitting around a fire out on a camping trip? What will they talk about when they meet someone new? Has the art of storytelling died with technology, or does it live on in some other sense that we haven't yet recognized?