Yesterday in my Spanish class I made my usual pathetic attempt to speak the language by stating the my friends and I used to play Super Mario 3, Street Fighter 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog.
Most of the class then proceeded to laugh.
Damn kids need to get off my lawn.
That reminds me of an oral presentation one student did in my 11th-grade Spanish class. The topic was contemporary music. If you really want to get blank stares from 9-year-olds today, mention bands like Los Chicos de la Playa or José del Campo y los Peces!
In his introduction to a recent reprint of Neuromancer, William Gibson talks about just how dated some parts of it are now.
On the one hand, he jokes that contemporary readers may wonder why cell phones aren't allowed in Night City.
On the other, he notes that contemporary readers who have grown up with cable TV may not even understand the first line of the novel: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
If you grew up watching black and white broadcast TV, the way Gibson and I did, you'd know that he was describing a silvery glow.
Nowadays, young people will read that, and likely think: "Okay, the sky was blue--so what?"
I definitely remember tuning an old B&W console TV to a channel that was nothing but a silvery glow.
It's called snow. A casualty of the digital age.
That was the channel used by beings from another dimension. If you got too close to the TV, it would suck you into an alternate universe.But now I wonder what it was that I remember.
What makes me feel old (born in 1983) is that some people born in the '90s are now adults, and have been for a couple years.
He keeps saying I need to "join the 21st century". Are his attitudes common among people your age? 
Tell me, you are one year older than a friend of mine. This guy does not wear his seat belt when driving, always stares at his blackberry while driving, texting and surfing the internet (yeah, while driving), and all the time, accuses me of being a relic of the 20th century because I want him to occasionally put his phone down and interact with, you know, people. He doesn't understand why I won't send him text messages while we're having lunch, when we are right across the table from each other!!
Hell, you're a youngster. I was born in 1953. When I was a boy, most cars didn't even have seatbelts. But every car had at least four ashtrays!
Tell me, you are one year older than a friend of mine. This guy does not wear his seat belt when driving, always stares at his blackberry while driving, texting and surfing the internet (yeah, while driving), and all the time, accuses me of being a relic of the 20th century because I want him to occasionally put his phone down and interact with, you know, people. He doesn't understand why I won't send him text messages while we're having lunch, when we are right across the table from each other!!
No. I was born in 1983 and that's not common. It's called being a douche and it happens in every generation. Technology can just makes it more obvious.
Tell me, you are one year older than a friend of mine. This guy does not wear his seat belt when driving, always stares at his blackberry while driving, texting and surfing the internet (yeah, while driving), and all the time, accuses me of being a relic of the 20th century because I want him to occasionally put his phone down and interact with, you know, people. He doesn't understand why I won't send him text messages while we're having lunch, when we are right across the table from each other!!
No. I was born in 1983 and that's not common. It's called being a douche and it happens in every generation. Technology can just makes it more obvious.
