Before the web, radio was a window into the world's diversity

Life is so fast-paced these days and technology plays a role in so many aspects of daily life, everything from having your dinner to riding a bike can involve all sorts of high-tech gadgetry that's beyond the imagination of most of us mere mortals.

And the existence of the internet, which has now been with us for more than two decades, makes us feel so glad that we now live in such an "interconnected" world in which we can communicate with people in all corners of the globe.

But we were far from cutoff and isolated beings before the internet ever existed. Don't imagine that we were all sitting in our respective countries and islands all isolated from each other and merely talking with ourselves.