modern (adj.) /ˈmɒd(ə)n/

The absolute meaning of the word modern is quite relative.

Looking at the definition in Wiktionary: Pertaining to a current or recent time and style; not ancient.

The first half of the definition is probably not accurate, and the second is just a negative definition which is not very useful.

My theory is that the period in which things are considered modern is proportional to the rate of evolution of the field to which they pertain.

Let’s take a look at some examples.

• Modern human: let’s say 45,000 years.
  Humans have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years.
• Modern era: 500 years.
  Eras (epochs) are typically measured in thousands of years.
• Modern art: 100 years.
• Modern technology: several years or decades.
  Do you consider 20-year-old phone to be modern technology?
• A modern programming language: several years.
  It’s not COBOL or FORTRAN but rather Rust and Go. Therefore 10 years.

What about

• modern smartphone,
• modern LLM (large language model),
• modern UI library and
• modern crypto wallet?