I love this list prepared by Megan Totka at ChamberofCommerce.com and appreciate Steven Hughes at geeklesstech.com for letting me reblog it.
With every generation comes new advances and changes to everyday life. Just in the last few decades, some things have changed so drastically, especially in the world of technology. Just think about how different the business world is. Many small business owners now use mobile apps to help run their business on an everyday basis. And I’m sure many of you are guilty of checking social media multiple times a week, if not every day.
Many of these changes have led to the cliché “kids these days have it so easy”. While I’m still fairly young, it’s still hard to believe how much has changed in my lifetime alone. The current generation will be raised with Google at their fingertips. Smartphones and tablets are a way of life, not something special or even unheard of.
Here is a list of a few things that the next generation will never have the pleasure of knowing:
Camera film – I know that a few types of cameras are still made that use film, but they are few and far between. By the time today’s youngsters grow up, there might not be such a thing as just a camera – cell phone cameras may be it. Ever go to pick up your pictures from a disposable camera just to find that most of them were terrible?
Cassette tapes and CDs – while CDs are still around, they are clearly being phased out in favor of digital music. I doubt it will be much longer before CDs are a thing of the past. Cassette tapes are long gone. Let’s not even get started on 8-tracks and records.
VHS tapes and a VCR – I remember when DD was a kid, we had nearly all of the Disney movies on VHS. It was always a sad day if your tape wasn’t rewound when she went to watch it. Wehad to either rewind it manually or wait for what felt like forever to rewind it with the machine. Same goes for recording shows onto VHS. What a process that was! DVRs have made life much easier in this aspect. Remember Blockbuster before they were nothing but kiosks in grocery stores? I do!
Floppy disks – remember when your life relied on not losing your floppy disk? If I remember correctly, they held about 3 files each. Now, we have thumb drives that hold multiple gigs of info, or external hard drives the size of a deck of cards that can hold a terabyte. That’s not even considering the vast amount of cloud storage that’s available for free.
Dial-up internet and AOL – hard to believe how far we’ve come from the days of that screeeeeee sound when the dial up was well, dialing up. And you had to use AOL to get online! Now there are multiple ways to access the web – laptop, smartphone, tablet, desktop.
With advances happening so quickly, what you’re using could easily become obsolete as fast as the items above.
What do you thin the next generation will be missing out on? Is that a good thing or are they missing out? Share your thoughts in the Comments.
(photo credit: Cassette Tape-npr.org)