“I like your old stuff better than your new stuff” were the song lyrics Regurgitator used to lament the new music from one of their favourite old bands. But in life rather than music, give me new stuff every time.

Our seventeen-year-old was recently lamenting – as only teenagers can – the fact that she wasn’t allowed to vote. She was shocked and appalled – as only teenagers can be – when I told her that in my lifetime the voting age in Australia had been 21. It was reduced to 18 after the persuasive argument that we should not send our young men (not people in those days) to fight in our wars before they could vote in our elections. I drew the parallel with Caroline Overington’s recently published “last woman hanged” where the suffragettes argued that if the legal system could execute women then perhaps women should have a place on juries, and be allowed to vote. Another successful argument.

This discussion caused me to think about several conversations I have had in the last week where I liked the new stuff better than the old stuff. They were numerous and disparate.

The first related to driving. A friend was bemoaning speeding fines, and I pointed out that the reasons that Australia’s road-toll and vehicle-related injuries have significantly decreased during the past few years were better safety technology in cars, better roads, and more stringent speeding laws. I prefer the new stuff.

Next was bill paying and banking. I asked someone about the methods of payment for their account, and they replied that the easiest way was for me to post them a cheque. I chuckled, and told them that I had not written a cheque since the last century. They were a little shocked by this claim, but agreed that the various electronic payment methods now available to us – direct debit, credit cards, and Paypal – were much more efficient for all concerned.

My wife and I were conducting a banking transaction on Sunday afternoon when the website stopped the transaction and logged us out without a reason. I bemoaned this inconvenience until Maureen pointed out to me that some years ago I would not have been able to pay this bill on a Sunday, and would have either had to post a letter, or go into a bank branch (something she claims not to have done this century) and pay over the counter. Of course she was right.

The third conversation related to how I read newspapers and books. Until a decade or so ago I didn’t read newspapers much at all. And when I did, it was in a bulky braille version with a very limited selection of articles which were quite out of date, or on the radio (link radio for the print-handicapped) at a time of the broadcasters choosing rather than mine. Now they arrive on my iPhone, and I select the type of articles I want to read from a variety of publications. It’s called an RSS feed.

Books are the same. I grew up reading braille books which arrived on my front verandah in a large cane basket, and more recently in satchels which I had to lug to the post office because they were too big to fit in the post-box. The alternative were audio books, which arrived in packages of cassettes. Now they fly to my iPhone or similar sized reading device through the cloud, and that trip to the post office has morphed so that my fingers do the walking on a keyboard or touch-screen.

Finally, there was the christmas holiday planning – fitting three generations of the extended family into the combination of apartments we had booked at our favourite resort. It was tricky – catering for cots, crying babies, and snoring adults (I plead guilty of that), and the different dates people would arrive and leave. “You’ll need a pen and paper,” I said to Maureen as we sat down to tackle the task. “I think you will have to draw a chart.”

“No,” she said, “I don’t need a charting tool I need an annotating tool. I think I’ll use Skitch in Evernote.” Three minutes, job done!

That’s why I like your new stuff better than your old stuff.

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