If I’m driving along in my car listening to GPS directions from Google Maps, am I online or offline? How about when I’m sitting at home streaming movies on demand? Skip forward a few years: if I’m dozing in my driverless car while my smartphone screens messages and calls, do words like “offline” and “online” even make sense?

The answer, I think, is that they make about as much sense as asking me today whether I have recently had any non-electric experiences. Electricity is so much a part of our world that it makes sense to ask how we use it – but no longer if or when we do. It’s a given.