Wednesday, June 19, 2013

The Good Old Days

Sometimes, I get nostalgic. I remember the days when CDs were a novelty, when I was excited to own my own cassette recorder, when my Dad's hi-fi station was a huge, three-piece monster and we'd sit in the living room flipping through his LP collection. When there were three channels on TV, and we were SO excited when my Dad bought a video recorder and would record Duck Tales for me.

The highlight of modern technology happened one Christmas, I think I was six or seven at the time, when my aunt gave me THIS:

Source

I was SO excited, and to this day, I love playing Tetris until my wrists hurt sometimes (hubby owns a Gameboy Advance, my Brick died when I was about 10 or so and was mourned properly).

The other day, I was reading an early reader's book with Lily, with a list of all the key words from the story under the corresponding picture. One of them was, of course, a Gameboy. And what does Lily do??

"What's that?? An App?? Oh no, I know, an iPhone!!!"

Do I feel old?? Very much so. I hit me like a train that this is a totally different world. I realized how substantially the world has changed in not even two decades. I remember when my Dad got his first computer and I was SO frustrated with my vocabulary program, but liked to play THIS:

Source
I remember the novelty of the internet, when I did most of the research for my graduation paper online while my fellow-students dug through tons of books. And then, my first cell phone!

And the world today? I have to admit, I chose to not participate in the latest technologies. I prefer paper books over e-readers, do not own a smart phone, and am just putting an mp3-player on my wish list for Christmas. Or maybe not? I prefer not jumping on every band wagon, stay a little bit with the basics, maybe I try subconsciously to channel a little bit of the world of my childhood... not... who am I kidding? I cannot imagine a life without the internet any more, so I embrace the new world and all it has to offer to our family and especially to our kids! And if Lily has an uncle crazy nice enough to let her play with his iPhone, so be it!

Blogger in the making? Lily at 2 years old



10 comments:

  1. Ok I tried this once and it didn't go throw... My kids don't realize how lucky they are to have iPhone,iPad Xbox and play station I can clearly remember a time before Internet and cell phones, honestly many days I long for those times
    www.mommysrambles.blogspot.com

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    1. I know, on the one hand I'm glad for all of today's technologies, on the other hand, I miss the good old times. I'm looking forward to the internet-free week while we're on vacation, but I bet I'll be looking forward to having it back afterward!

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  2. I'm a stifler for technology but yet I am not even up to date due to lack of money, so you are perfectly fine not running out getting every little thing. You decide what is right for you or not. I do feel ya though because just this morning while listening to my mp3's I thought about how much I miss CD sleeves, a little weird but I really do. :)

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    1. I'm thinking about getting an mp3-player for running, or for the bus. I have once tried to run with my disk-man back in the days, needless to say, that didn't work out well ;-)

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  3. My parents are kind of anti-technology so my little 10 year old sisters actually have old school gameboys like that. It's adorable to see them enjoying the same thing I enjoyed when I was their age. :-)

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    1. The hubby is actually trying to get an old super-nintendo station, just to beat the girls in Super Mario :-) It was a lot of fun back then!! Glad your sisters get a little feeling of the early 1990s!!

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  4. Loved my GameBoy. Mario games were my fave.
    I have a hard time with all the leaps and bounds in technology, too, and how much to give to the kids. But my husband noted that we're just hamstringing them by keeping it away from them. All little kids know how to operate computers nowadays. But ours still prefer to play outside, so that's some comfort. :)

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    1. I loved Tetris, but the Duck Tales and Mickey Mouse games as well. I never had a Mario game myself, but sometimes traded with friends, Ah, the good old days ;-) Nowadays, Lily always wants to play "Plants vs. Zombies" on the computer!

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  5. I never really owned any of the handheld gaming equipment, but I had [have] a lot of the consoles! I still remember the defining moment when growing up that secured my path down the gaming lifestyle :-)

    No smartphone for me yet, nor an Ipad, an eReader, or the like. I may get all of the above at some point (starting with the cell for convenience reasons). So much of the rapidly evolving technology coming out today interconnect with one another and are capable of doing more than I would have imagined barely a decade ago (if not half a decade). It's pretty exciting, yet crazy!

    Jak at The Cryton Chronicles & Dreams in the Shade of Ink

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    1. We got rid of our consoles when we moved, because they cannot be used in Germany (different outlets and voltage). We now use the computer for games, and even Lily starts already! And yes, technology is indeed advancing ever faster. I agree, I find it almost scary, but awesome at the same time!!

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