So I have this discussion with friends from time to time about all the things that are fading into disuse that the adults of tomorrow probably won’t remember.
This list only includes those things that were omnipresent while we’ve been alive. I could easily add 8-track tapes to the list but we barely remember those so that’s out. No, this is a list of things that were prevalent at some point and have begun to disappear in our lifetimes.
I realize that for some items on the list, considering them as totally obsolete in another decade might be a stretch, but I never said I wouldn’t introduce a bit of exaggeration in my assessment.
Without further ado:
Things kids won’t remember
- A time before the “Nutritional Facts” label became standard across all food products
- Cassette players and cassette tapes
- Postage stamps that actually had a fixed monetary value (or postage stamps altogether)
- Laserdiscs (ok, so maybe these weren’t all that popular to begin with)
- Answering machines
- Saturday morning cartoons
- Brick and mortar music shops
- DVDs (actually I think they’ll hang around for a while much like turntables and records have but they won’t be nearly as cool in comparison)
- The glory of the early Web
- The growing pains of Internet Explorer
- TV over plain-old rabbit ears (not DTV)
- The library (though I’m sure universities and colleges will still keep them around, except they’ll call them “museums”)
- A time before “the social network”
- Bank lollipops
- Video rental stores
- Dial-up Internet connectivity/services (AOL, anyone?)
- Arcades
- A time before WiFi
- Mobile phones with physical buttons on the front
Can you think of anything else?
Many, Many Words 