A comment to an earlier post of mine got me thinking about some of the differences between the kid’s formative years versus mine and the Wife’s. Stuff like this is hardly original, but it is interesting to think about:
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A phone will always be wireless- be it a home phone or a cell phone. They will likely never operate a rotary phone or call collect. Further, voice recognition software means that by the time they’re teenagers they won’t have much experience dialing a phone.
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They will never have to program a VCR to record. It’s likely they’ll never know about the beta vs vhs wars. For that matter, they’ll likely never know that recording used to be done to a tape.
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While they’re familiar with DVD’s, I expect that such things will be obsolete by the time they become teenagers.
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A computer will be an every day part of life. Not a luxury item or a novelty. Anyone remember the TRS-80’s? the Commodore 64? TI-64?
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They will never have lived without the Internet.
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Multiple remote controls for TV’s and DVR’s and the like are normal. They will never have been the remote for their parents. For that matter, they’ll likely never have to monkey with an antenna to tune into a TV station.
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We had Sesame Street and The Electric Company. They have Dora, Diego, Mickey’s Clubhouse, Special Agent Ozo, and Shon the Sheep as well as Sesame Street, Arthur, Dragon Tale’s and Martha.
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They won’t be able to comprehend the notion that large computer hard drives used to be measured in the 10’s of megabytes. It’ll would be equally shocking that there used to be external hard drives the size of washing machines.
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Car windows will always have been button activated, as opposed to the rotary handles. Car locks are all automatic, and unlocking the car is as simple as pushing a button on a key-fob.
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They will never appreciate the gut-wrenching line “Luke, I AM your father.” Also, “I’ll be back” and “ADRIAN!” will mean nothing to them. The question “Kirk or Picard?” might as well be about choosing between brands of pickles.
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Cameras are toys. They won’t know about waiting a week for pictures to be developed, of driving up to a little Kodak booth and dropping off canisters of film. What’s film?
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Cellphones will always have been capable of taking pictures and shooting video. They’ll never have seen a cell phone larger than a wallet.
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The Red Sox will only be about 10 or so years into a championship drought.
Alright, the last one is a smidge gratuitous. I’m sure there’s more, but the lass wants to run through a sprinkler.