Being born in 1994, I call myself a proud part of the generation labelled as the “90s Kids”. We have had the best of cartoons, saw a millennium changing, survived the “end of earth”, spent our childhood more in the backyard while hardly anybody had a computer at their home. As much as anyone from this generation gets filled with nostalgia talking about those times, equally disheartening it is to know that our kids will never be able to saw the things we saw and did what we used to do. While mutating from the 20th century to this 21st century, we have had a full blown technological revolution. New gadgets have been invented about which nobody would have thought 15 or 20 years ago. What seemed impossible back then is the reality today. But during revamping to this modern, electronic age, we have left behind a bundle of things. Those might not be required today or because we have found newer and better versions of them but they have been a part of our lives long enough that we have got attached to them. But our kids would never be as lucky as us.
10. Writing letters
Yes, I know emailing has been a blessing for all of us and how much time it saves. You don’t need to go to the post office, put on a stamp and then post a letter. And it would take at least a couple of days to reach the destination and several times it wouldn’t reach at all. Whereas in emailing, you simple write, attach pictures, documents or whatever you want and all takes is a click and your mail is sent. But what about the feelings and the emotions we used to get to when we would sit down to write an actual letter? Be it weddings photographs, important information, money orders or anything, we would just rely upon our humble postman who used to deliver all the letters. And how eagerly we would wait for him during the holiday season when we would be expecting cards from our relatives and friends. But all that is changing rapidly and the generations yet to come would not even know how life used to be without the mailing websites.....
9. Playing the 64 bit video games
Oh! Those were the times. Not so hi-fi graphics, built on a 64 bit operating system, random childlike music but that was a treasure. Playing Mario Bros, Islander, Ice climber etc, used to be such a treat for us and anyone could be glued to them for hours. We would go to gaming shops and buy video game cassettes, 64 in 1, 99999 in 1 and so many others. Though, you can toggle from a vast range of games today and download them in a couple of seconds but old is definitely gold. But unfortunately our kids will never get to play them.
8. Watching Television that had picture tubes
Not a very long time ago, televisions looked like a huge heavy box but soon the usage of picture tubes was taken over by the LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) technology which later got upgraded to LED (Light Emitting Diode). Subsequently, today we find sleek and stylish televisions sets and computer monitors, which can be fixed on a wall and they can transform your living room into a home theatre. A decade ago, if somebody would have told you that televisions would be this thin in future, then you would not have believed but now all see around us are LED’s are the box like television sets are soon going to become extinct.
7. Developing Camera Rolls
This is the age of digitization. Electronic, communication, our cable network, everything is becoming digitized. Owing to this, camera rolls have already become a thing of the past. Clicking a bunch of pictures till the roll gets filled and then giving it to a photo studio for developing was a common practice. We needed to buy camera rolls every now and then but now they have got no use. A digital camera’s memory card can give you a storage capacity of upto 32 GB that can store A LOT of pictures and videos and you can instantly view them over your gadget.
6. Buying Greetings Cards
Currently we have greetings cards for almost every occasion, for birthdays, anniversaries, Mother’s Day etc. But the trend of electronic greetings is picking up fast. Ordering a whole bunch of wedding cards and then getting them delivered to the whole clan seems to be a tedious job and also is really time consuming. That’s why young couples are taking up to electronic wedding cards and they can create even their own wedding website. The rate at which this transformation is taking place, I Doubt if I will be able to get a birthday card for my kids in the coming years.
5. Buying cassettes
When was the last time you saw a cassette? I seriously don’t remember when I did. Cassettes have been such an important part of our lives, from listening to music to recording school dance performances. That rectangular plastic things that had tape coiled inside it has become almost a bygone things now. CDs took their place but now even those aren’t used. Memory cards and pendrives are what we store our lives in.
4. Watching Tom & Jerry
No matter how young or old you are, whether you like watching television or not, but you just can’t miss watching Tom & Jerry. I have spent almost my whole childhood watching Tom chasing little Jerry and always getting into trouble and ending up with a swollen face or a flat body. Till now whenever I find it on television, nobody dares to change the channel. This cartoon is actually that good. But will it be able to make it for another 20-30 years? I fear that.
3. Dialing a rotatory phone
Those were bulky, old fashioned, antique and yet so cool. Dialing a number would actually take up like 2 complete minutes. And then you have to sit at a particular spot to have a conversation over phone. You cannot pick it up, put it in your pockets and roam around like we do now. Rotatory phones were invented in 1891 and had a circular dial with numbers from 0-9 over it. Rotatory phones have already become almost extinct but I’m quite skeptical about whether my kids would even believe when they will be told that once upon a time phones used to look like his.
2. Spending teenage without a smart phone
Yes we did that, and we turned out perfectly fine and social. We did not have Whatsapp to message our friends whenever we want, we did not have a camera in our phones yet all the memories are fresh in our minds, we could not listen to our favourite songs whenever we wanted, instead we would sit beside the radio and jump with rejoice when that special song would play. But can our kids do that? Certainly not! I find my 3rd grader niece hooked to her 5.3” Galaxy Note all the time and man! When I was her age I was busy dressing up my Barbie Doll.
1. Playing outside till dark
Coming back from school, quickly finishing up lunch and leaving to play. That’s how life was. We would play a number of odd games, like hide and seek, badminton, making mud castles and what not. The only thing that would bring back us back home was mom calling out for dinner when it was already too dark. But will we ever allow our kids to do the same? I don’t think so. Firstly, kids today are already so much absorbed in their laptops, tuitions, school projects and all that they get is very little or absolutely no time to play outside. And the upcoming generations will be a step ahead than the current one. Moreover, we are becoming too protective for our kids lately and allowing them to play till dark seems to be an adventurous task.
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