The age of experience

I don’t know what quiz show I was watching, but a question came up about the Internet – specifically, about dial-up broadband. The contestant, a young fella about age 19, got it wrong, and then admitted that he had no idea what dial-up was. Fair enough – I mean, he was more than a bit thick.

So, I took the story to uni, and told it to a couple of friends (all of them younger than me), to be greeted with the same response. At this point, it was getting somewhat sad. I pushed the point, though, mentioning other things from my childhood, like the VCR, the telephone cord, and the cassette tape. To my dismay, some of them didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. As a result, I felt a bit old.

Some readers will not know of a time when you had to stop whatever you were doing on the computer because your parents wanted to make a phone call…

I’m 21, and I don’t think that things from my childhood should be artefacts just yet; however, with the rate of change I’m seeing, this phenomenon can hardly be a new one. It was the start of the millennium, really, when the things I’ve mentioned were fading out. Wi-fi was becoming a thing – as I write this, I’m conscious that some readers will not know of a time when you had to stop whatever you were doing on the computer because your parents wanted to make a phone call.

Similarly, CDs and DVDs were getting cheaper and more ubiquitous. You used phones to make calls or play Snake, and that was it. Pixar had just started out, with its computer-generated animation blowing everyone away. And Pokemon was an exciting new game – I still have my original Red.

Now, I don’t know if I remember all this so well because our family was poorer and we consequently stuck with the older technology a bit longer, but I certainly remember people selling their VCR videos while they were still worth something. The kids of today (anyone from the very late nineties onwards, really) do not know of a time before the modern Golden Age of technology, where new computers and phones weren’t cheap and disposable, and you actually had to speak to people to communicate.

It would never occur to him to read a book, or play outside, or be sociable with another human being…

This is partly invoked by nostalgia, of course – who doesn’t remember their childhood with fondness? – but also by the knowledge that I am the last of a generation that can recall a world that wasn’t dominated by electronics. My brother and his friends are a prime example of this.

He was born in 2000, and spends his days just sitting on his phone or on his 3DS, staring blankly at the screen whilst the television flickers in the background. Take his gadgets from him and he complains and withers – the kid does not know how to be bored. It would never occur to him to read a book, or play outside, or be sociable with another human being – he has no real world skills to speak of, and it upsets me.

The world we live in has changed so much since my childhood, and it makes me feel really old. Sadly, I only see things getting worse for future kids: society is getting more passive, more zombified, and I hate to think of what the kids my brother grows up to frown upon will be like.