The most important invention in your lifetime is…
I am just older than the internet. The first linked computer system (ARPANET) went live in October to December 1969, when I was a few months old.
As a tool for spreading information and knowledge the internet is up there with agriculture, written language and the printing press; I might be old but I post date both those things.
I first encountered the web (invented in 1989) in 1993 when I worked at Liverpool University. I think I knew of it, probably from Tomorrows World, but had never used a web browser. I used it mainly for research since the original users of the web and internet were academic and military.
There have been many other great inventions in the last few decades; some of the advances in medicine are frankly astonishing. The invention of MRI and DNA fingerprinting and the continued development of computer storage and quantum computing spring to mind.
But the fact of the internet and the ease with which ideas can be shared and communication can occur has enabled these advances in the same way that the printing press ushered in The Enlightenment.
Grim up North Heath 