It isn't every single day that you get reminded about how old you are and when you were born. I'm only 18 years of age, right out of high school and I have already been reminded about how old fashioned I am.
So we had some relatives over and their child was about 9 years old. He was upset that he is missed one of his favourite shows by coming over. I told him that he could have video taped it in the VCR before he left. His response was "What's a VCR?"
You know, I'm not easily surprised, but this time I was in shock. Once again, technology is advancing so fast that the child of 9 did not know what a VCR is, let alone video taping. I guess today, you record everything on your Foxtel IQ or DVD recorder or something similar. I was flabbergasted. I didn't really know how to respond to that question.
I proceeded to talk the kid into a game of Scrabble. Looks like board games don't appeal to the younger audience anymore. Too bad I don't have X-Box or PS3s. I don't even have those GameBoys anymore. I failed into teaching him how to play. His vocab is obviously not as extensive as mine and let us just say that, well, he preferred something else. At this point I let him watch television while I proceeded to play a few games of online chess.
I don't know if I'm allowed to feel old. I feel that old technology becomes extinct once new ones are brought in and not really appreciate modern technology's ancestors, metaphorically speaking. Maybe one day, we see the death of tape recorders being replaced with ipods and iphones, radios replaced by mobiles, newspapers replaced by internet and mobile phones providing live feeds or even perhaps the death of using paper. No more paper, no more pens, no ink. A tablet with metallic and magnetic signals which can be detected and be applied to a transparent screen. It actually scares me, the idea.
I'm glad I have experienced part of history, part of the very essence in the birth of technology. A memory will be treasured.
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