Now We Feel Old!: "Things Your Kids May Never Know"

I was born in the 1980's. I'm hardly entering mid-life, let alone applying for my AARP card. But Wired has found a way to make my twenty-something years feel like a lifetime. The online magazine's tech-centric list of the "100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About" brings up all the usual outdated lifestyle technologies (the VHS tape) and some others that make you go, "Whoa..."

Wired's of the "100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About" covers small memories that were once part of your everyday life that your kids will probably never do or think about ever.

The list is divided into categories of audio-visual entertainment, computers and videogaming, the internet, gadgets, and everything else. Check it out here and let us know in the comments which ones made you feel like moving to Florida and starting a Bingo club.

We personally cringed at the thought that our kids (and even my own little sister) might never know about a time when you had to drop film off at the drugstore and wait to see your pictures when they arrived in a little paper envelope with negatives!

Image from gothopotam at Flickr with a Creative Commons license.

Comments (13)

I have a funny dial-up modem ringtone. Most of the time it's hilarious, as everyone starts looking around trying to figure out where the fax machine was. A person at the zoo even asked me if I was getting a fax! But then my 12-year-old brother said, "What is that noise?" and I felt very old...

posted by matchbookhymnal on July 29th 2009 at 10:16pm
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What's ironic is that I am finally getting around to digitizing all my LP's. I have to put it on hold though...and get a new belt drive for my JVC turntable, which I bought in 1992. I was lucky to FIND a belt drive online!!

I posted something about this on my Facebook and a guy asked, "WHAT is an LP?" Luckily my 18 y.o. daughter came to my rescue (yeah, she's old school!) and explained it.

I'm looking forward to getting the LP's converted because I just cannot FIND some of them on CD's. Gonna work on converting cassettes tomorrow though. Hopefully my cassette player still works!

posted by Jannarama on July 30th 2009 at 12:48am
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When floppy disks were actually floppy.

posted by bromeliad on July 30th 2009 at 9:06am
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They'll never know what it's like grow with silence. Technology is wonderful but the quiet I grew up with is gone. I'm referring more to the incessant talk and chatter rather than the beeps and dings of modern life. I love the connections and understandings that technology enables. However, there is something to be said for quieting the mind and being with the breath.

posted by maipop on July 30th 2009 at 9:38am
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what about blowing into nintendo games to get them to work? or monitoring your internet usage because you were being charged by the minute?

posted by jennyinchicago on July 30th 2009 at 10:22am
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10-10-811, what a deal it was to only pay 10 cents a minute for long distance.

posted by s and the r on July 30th 2009 at 11:50am
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someone asked me for a check recently. i didn't have any on me. who does? only the landlord can't be paid online.

posted by Lady J on July 30th 2009 at 1:59pm
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things theyll never know

1. Eating a chocolate bar that obviously has nuts without a legal disclaimer "may contain nuts"

2. Able to look at polar bears, enjoy their beauty and not mourn their decline and the melting of the north.

3. Not seeing corn syrup listed on the ingredients of almost every processed food.

4. Being able to sit anywhere in a big city and not be on a webcam, police cam, creepy stranger's cam, etc

posted by GhostFish88 on July 30th 2009 at 2:39pm
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Remote control = my friend's little brother, who we'd make sit near the TV and turn the dial for us. (#6 on the list)

posted by ilima on July 30th 2009 at 3:36pm
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-signing out a library book by writing my name on a card and getting the date due slip stamped
-plastic (or even metal) lunch kits instead of lunch bags
-wooden rulers with the metal strip
-air mail letters
-having no idea who was calling you whenever the phone rang!

posted by Mlle Kate on July 30th 2009 at 9:03pm
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I still remember my best friend's phone number from when I was three (though I haven't called it in 13 years or so), but I don't even know the area code of my boyfriend of two years...

posted by bewarethebaobabs on July 31st 2009 at 5:26pm
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Yes, this is all very sad. I just turned 30 and it makes me sad to know my little cousins won't see an original Nintendo, or know what it meant to stay at home and wait for the phone to ring or getting yelled at for streatching the cord on the phone! LOL Or what a real action movie is without a green screen! Thanks for the link, too funny but sad at the same time.

posted by MrsBaughn on August 1st 2009 at 11:49am
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maipop, wasn't that silence wonderful? Finding a quiet spot in the house to actually read a real live book that you walked to the library to get (as Mlle Kate pointed out).

How about actually spending hours outside (first jump rope, then roller skating, then handball in the park and if you had enough time, more jump rope before the street lights came on). How about the Mr. Softee truck - They still have them in NY and I almost caused an accident following one!

My cousin is having a rough time right now; she has only a land line, network television and no internet. I was shocked to hear this and felt really bad, but she does not seem to mind because she goes outside to walk around NY and is in great shape.

Gone is imagination and creativity. Hardly any schools have art class (much less shop or ceramics) any more.

Some favorite games/toys I miss:
Big Wheels
Twister
Candyland
Chrissy (the doll that had a ponytail that came out of a hole in her head and you could make it any length.
Cards in the spokes of your bike wheels
Those plastic flag things on the handlebars of your bike
dollhouses
Paper dolls
Coloring Books
Piano lessons (oh, I feel sad).