Due to the fast pace at which technology has progressed,
there are things that kids these days will always take for granted; a world of
instant-everything where you never have to wait or stand in line; where
information is at your disposal without moving an inch. Before we got this far,
my generation was the “test group”. The beta versions of everything started with
us. We were the analogue generation, and we loved it. Here are things that the
selfie-takers will never get an opportunity to experience.
Phones
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Cell phones? Hah. First of all, you had to wait months on
end for a landline connection. When your number came up, it was like winning a
lottery. “Yes, people can now call me for parties.” Which still never happened,
of course. Also, the phones only made and received calls. That was it.
Ridiculous right? A phone just used for calling. Sheesh. The other good thing
was you could slam the phone down in anger. Bam! Talk to the dial tone! Now?
You can press the disconnect button really hard I guess? “Ooh.. I’m gonna swipe
the red phone icon so hard right now.”
Photographs
The good ol days of no selfies. It was a simpler, less
annoying time then. You could only take around 32 shots per film roll. And
there was no picture preview. So you better get your smile straight the first
time and for god sakes don’t blink. Nobody, absolutely nobody, would take
photographs of their meals. I remember trying to take a picture of a dish I
made and my mother smacked me on the head. “There are only 2 shots left in the
roll. Just look at your food. Remember it good. Draw a picture if you like.”
Internet
I remember getting my first internet connection somewhere
around 1998. We had something called a dial-up modem. You hit a button that
said ‘connect’ and then started praying to the internet gods really hard. The
modem would then make sounds that I can only describe as two fax machines
mating. Finally, if you’re lucky, you were connected and at speeds of, who
knows, 6kbps? you could start loading a page, write a thesis from scratch,
finish, and come back, and the page would only be done half way. God forbid if
your mum picked up the phone on the other end. Then you’d have to start all
over again. I could never understand why she just couldn’t wait for a few hours
for my page to load, and then make her phone call.
Tapes
I don’t remember the last time I physically purchased a
medium to watch movies or play music. Decades ago we used to have tapes. With
large players that could be mistaken for washing machines. Video tapes would
let us watch the latest movies through the magic of ‘camera print’. Which means
some bootlegger in America would actually film the movie, in the theatre, and
sell the movies in India. Hah, those poor idiots paid lots of money to watch a
movie in a theatre. And we were getting the same experience of people walking
in front of us or of the person behind you talking loudly, for quarter the
price. Losers.
Library
The library is just like the internet but with less
pornography. We didn’t have Google or Wiki, but we still knew stuff. The school
stuff we researched the hard way, locating books and going through them. The
girl stuff we asked our most experienced friends, who were pretty much making
up information as they went along. The rest, we really didn’t need to know.
Like what was the latest colour of Michael Jackson. Or why cats hate cucumbers
(they really do, there’s this hilarious video on YouTube that you need to check
out!).
