I suppose it depends on one's perspective. The differences between, say, 1901 and 1950 as far as technology goes are really paradigmatic game-changers, in communications of all sorts. Cars, planes, oil-fired ships rather than coal or wind-powered, telephones, radio, television.... my, my, the list goes on, and you even have the first primitive computers by the end of that period. Likewise, amazing advances in medicine (sulfa drugs, penicillin, polio vaccine; all sorts of diagnostic advances). Likewise, huge advances in agriculture, fibers, just about all materials.
From 1950 to 2001, though, I'd suggest the technological advances, while great, are not quite of the same earth-shaking proportions as those from the earlier half of the century. The differences seem to be more in degree than in kind. Although we can argue about computer tech as the most revolutionary change of that period. Combined with wireless tech, which goes back to the first part of the 20th century, it has made a profound difference in personal communications. But cars are not so different, trains, planes, ships... all are more similar to their 1950 ancestors than those ancestors were to those from 1901 (indeed, some of them didn't even really exist in 1901). And the advances of the first decades of this century are more of the same, there is nothing new under the sun, there are just differences in efficiency.
Technology is not the only thing that has changed, though, and I think the social and cultural changes are just as significant, and make 1901 look very different from 2001, although there are those in 2024 who want to make society resemble the former more than the latter. There have been some pretty vast changes in who's in and who's out, who counts and who doesn't, more, perhaps, in the latter half of the 20th century than in the first half. The rise of the middle class was taking hold after WW2 was concluded, but the numbers and types of people who could participate really began to multiply after the 70's rolled around -- whereupon the reactionaries began to double down on their oppressive schemes to keep people in their places as they had been in the "Old Days."
Whether this is a cycle or simply a progression curve with dips and valleys, is a subject for debate. I tend to be skeptical of cyclical explanations, thinking that they are an attempt to impose order and predictability where none exists. But the suggestion that there is some kind of lineal progression is fraught with its own difficulties, so I tend to reserve judgement.
Please accept my condolences for your Aunt.
-- Mal
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