Nine years ago, back at the turn of the century, I did a cartoon montage for the op-ed page looking forward into the future. One of the drawings was of a typical 21st-Century ultra-couch potato, an inert organism with an electrode implanted in his brain. Through the implant, he was fed all the virtual experiences of a full, rewarding life as we knew it at the end of 1999.

Technology is moving even faster than anyone could have predicted. As we tighten our belts, "virtual" reality, which is cheap, is becoming more and more the norm. Look at all the fantasy computer games, the online dating services, Facebook and Myspace, which substitute for physical interaction.

My question is, at what point is "virtual" so commonplace that it becomes "actual" to those who have grown up never having experienced the things of which "virtual" is only an artful facsimile?

What happens to those genuine experiences safeguarded only by the old-timers and their failing memories? They become arid wisps, consigned to the history books and back copies of the newspapers. And nobody reads books and newspapers anymore.