The technological revolution has brought a lot of changes to our lives. The ways we communicate are different, as well as the ways we watch a movie or listen to music. Today the whole world is at our feet, and it is easy to forget the difficulties we had in the past. However, no matter how inopportune these were, we do remember about them with smiles on our faces. We will surely tell our children about the way technology was before, but will they be able to relate? Probably not. We have come up with a list of 9 facts your kids will find hard to understand about our youth.
1. Your cell phone battery could last for days before recharging
As phones have become more and more advanced, they serve not only for communicating, but are also equipped with countless features: video cameras, social media platforms and various utilities. Your children will never know the times when a phone was used only for calls and messages, and the occasional Snake game. Furthermore, they will find it hard to understand how the battery from your old Nokia could last more than a day without recharging, or how you could drop it as many times as you wanted, and it still wouldn’t have a scratch.
2. You had to rewind VHS tapes to watch a movie
Remember when you wanted to re-watch a movie on a VHS player with your family and friends? You would settle on your comfy couch, with some snacks and drinks, you would put the video cassette inside the player and would feel the world just ended. That is because VHS tapes needed to be re-winded in order to use them again, and no one bothered to do it after they just finished watching their favorite motion picture.
3. You had to search for information at the library
Whether you had to write a report at school or your Bachelor thesis, you had to get the information from a physical library. There were no search engines, no copy-paste features, you had to do it all manually. First you needed to search in an alphabetical catalogue to find the book you needed. Afterward, you had to find the book on the correct shelf and the exact pages you needed for your work. Not to mention that you also needed to source it correctly.
4. You had to use pay phones
Before the ultra resistant cellphones, we had payphones. You might still see the carcasses of old phone booths in various cities. You could use them by inserting an amount of coins depending on the time you wanted to speak.
5. You witnessed painful scenes in children movies
The movies and TV shows of our childhood contained painful moments, unlike most of the ones that are released today. We weren’t sheltered from despair. Take for instance that scene from The Lion King, when Simba’s father, Mufasa, is thrown from a rock by his brother and killed by a stampede of wildebeests. That was the moment we learned about suffering, but also about betrayal.
6. You used instant messenger to talk with your friends
MSN messenger was the greatest thing before the technological revolution that brought smartphones into our lives. It was highly popular with children and teenagers who used it to communicate with their friends in their free time. Many also used it to stalk their crushes, analyzing the statuses they had and each emoticon they posted.
7. You had only one option to get the newest songs
If you wanted to listen to the newest hits, there was no iTunes of Google Play store. For the ones who couldn’t wait for the release on CD (meaning most of us), they had one single option: LimeWire. LimeWire was a program where you could download new music. Unfortunately, most of the tracks were crappy radio rips, and there was a high possibility of getting a virus that caused the most PC fatalities about ten years ago.
8. You had to share the Internet
This might sound preposterous, but every time someone in the house was talking on the phone or expecting a call, you couldn’t use the Internet. Thus you were left with only few games on your computer. 3D Pinball was the only three-dimensional one, which you would waste your time on until you could use the Internet again.
9. You listened to music on CD players
Before iPods and mp3 players, we had to listen to music on CD players. These devices were extremely sensible and had to be handled with extreme care, because every sudden movement could cause them to crash or to damage the CD. Furthermore, we had an entire bag to carry our CDs around, which never seemed to have enough pockets for our favorite music collection.
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