I was chatting online recently about “kids nowadays vs kids in the 70s and 80s”. Someone mentioned that their youngest wanted to know where the head phones plugged into a cassette tape, and it struck me that kids nowadays have missed out on some amazing experiences that made us the adults that we are today.
And so I compiled a list. This is by no means a definitive list of things they’ve missed out on, but a list built by combining my memories and collecting suggestions from people on Twitter and Facebook.
If you have any further suggestions, let me know via Twitter!
Things that Kids Today Will Never Do.
Phone a friend at their house, and have to speak to that persons parents first.
Phone someone and have the person answering recite their number to you as their introduction. Yes, the one you just dialled.
Have to be stationary while on the phone, because the cord attaching the handset to the phone was only 2 meters long.
Make the crunchy walkie-talkie noise before pretending to talk into a walkie-talkie.
Write to a friend and have to wait 5 days for a reply to be posted through the front door.
Go to a shop to see if something is in stock. If it isn’t, you ask them to get one for you and go back to that same shop after a week-long wait.
Buy a 10p mix that has more than 10 sweets in it.
Have to find a spare section of video tape to record something on TV. If you missed it, you missed it.
Being able to write a diary, without having to log in first.
Phone a friend at someone else’s house, at a pre-arranged time, because that friend didn’t have a home phone.
Give a hand written note to a friend to pass to another friend because you weren’t in the same class as them.
Make sure you had a 10p coin on you while you were out playing, in case you needed to make an emergency phone call.
Pay to borrow a film from a shop and panic the day after, 10 minutes before it is due back, that you didn’t rewind it.
Remember phone numbers.
Cycle miles to the local library in order to look up information in a reference book.
Knock on the neighbours door to see if they had 50p so that you could buy electricity via a box on your wall.
Eat an apple instead of turning one on.
Rewind an album or film.
Go and play in a stream, catching newts in jam jars.
Stick sellotape over corners of either a cassette or video tape to be able to re-record on it.
Listen to records in a booth in the music shop, before buying.
Wind a cassette tape with a pencil.
“Editing” music on cassette when the tape chewed up, by using sellotape.
Recording the charts on the radio onto tape and trying to press stop before the DJ started talking!
Use the counter on a cassette player to know where the next computer game started loading from.
Wait 10 minutes for a game to load, off a cassette tape, each time they want to play it.
Have to wait until 6pm, 9pm or 10pm to find out todays news.
Collecting Milk bottle tops for Blue Peter to save some random animal or build something.
Doing a weekly shop. If you ran out of food you liked, you got given what was in the cupboard.
Watch MTV and it be about music.
Take pop bottles back to the shop to get some money.
Shrink crisp packets under the grill, to make badges.
Bob-a-Job.
Have nothing to do but play on a Sunday because all the shops were shut
Rip your finger on a disposable ring pull.
