One generation away, teens react to Windows 95

[Timewalker]

It could be a fun reality show. Create a town from the 1990s and drop some teenagers in it. No wifi. No cellphones. Give them some tasks and watch them attempt to accomplish them 90s-style. Make the bastards use a payphone!

I suppose there are kids nowadays who don't know how to do that, and their parents are among those who shrug that the phone companies are removing so many payphones.

It makes life really inconvenient for those of us who don't own cell phones.

I agree about the context thing. '90s kids would probably have found it hard to get along if they were suddenly dropped in the '70s, because they were not exposed to that environment and way of living when growing up. And we would all have trouble getting along if we were transported to Edwardian England, no matter how much Downton Abbey we may have watched.

Kor

Heh, I remember the scene when Mrs. Hughes tried to figure out how to work the newfangled electric toaster and burned the bread. Carson smelled the smoke, thought the kitchen was on fire, and was ready to dump sand all over everything.

Even contemporary people with different computer systems had trouble understanding things, though. My first computer was an Amiga 500, and it had no internet capability. There was no tower, either, and my Windows 95/98-using friend asked me how on earth I could save anything without a tower. "On disks," I told her. She still didn't understand, so I told her it was like recording a TV show onto a VHS cassette, only in my case it was on a 3 1/4-inch disk.

I've read recently about kids who don't know how to turn physical pages on books and magazines, since they only understand how to use touch screens.

 

[Tesophius]

win.com you mean?

Should have shown them windows me - they'd have really felt sorry for us then!

Maybe it was win.com, I don't remember now, it's been over 20 years. Astonishing!

The biggest difference of the 90s to me was using physical paper maps. I'm surprised anyone figured out how to get anywhere. Back then asking strangers for directions was a common occurrence in life, seems so bizarre now. In a way it took something away from traveling. Nowadays, when I travel, I know exactly where I'm going, even what the building outside of the train station looks like, before I get there. In the 90s you had to figure things out as your trip unfolded.

 

[Timewalker]

Maybe it was win.com, I don't remember now, it's been over 20 years. Astonishing!

The biggest difference of the 90s to me was using physical paper maps. I'm surprised anyone figured out how to get anywhere. Back then asking strangers for directions was a common occurrence in life, seems so bizarre now. In a way it took something away from traveling. Nowadays, when I travel, I know exactly where I'm going, even what the building outside of the train station looks like, before I get there. In the 90s you had to figure things out as your trip unfolded.

People don't read physical maps anymore?

No wonder some have no idea what I'm talking about when I give directions to my home. I tell them to go to a specific well-known landmark and "head north." They look at me blankly and ask, "Which way is north?".

And not too long ago, someone else assured me, quite seriously, that the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east.

WTF are the schools teaching nowadays? It's obvious that they're not teaching basic geography!

 

[urbandefault]

My first computer was a Radio Shack Color Computer. It had program cartridges you'd plug in like an Atari 2600, or you could load programs from cassette. Or write them yourself in BASIC. That was fun.

 

[MacLeod]

Ah, I remem ber BASIC, I also vaguely remember C+ from my college days. .

And whilst I do have a sat nav, I also have a paper road map in my car, Paper maps are easy to use and unlike sat nav devices don't need power. About the only thing I use my Sat Nav for is to get to a specfic place within a town/city etc.. I've already checked the paper map to work out the main route.

And however did we manage with those 1.44Mb disks.

 

[RoJoHen]

I suppose there are kids nowadays who don't know how to do that, and their parents are among those who shrug that the phone companies are removing so many payphones.

You suppose?

The majority of kids today have their own iPhones. They probably haven't even seen a payphone before.

Hell, it's been at least a decade since I last saw one.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Are we done with the youth-bashing yet? That's always way more tiresome than how kids actually behave.

You kids these days... when I was your age, "youth bashing" was a full contact sport! Old man Peters and his gang used to chase us down the street on their electric scooters swinging steel chains with laser disks at the ends of them!

Ah, the mid to late 1990s were a simpler time... yes they were...

 

[Timewalker]

It's a reasonable comment, given that I don't have either a cell phone or any human children.

If I did have human children, though, they'd damn well know how to use a pay phone. The only person I ever met who didn't seem to know how to use one was a Hutterite woman I encountered at the local Farmers' Market nearly 20 years ago. My SCA group was giving a demo and I'd gone into the arena to use the pay phone to see what was keeping our Seneschale and her husband, and a Hutterite woman walked up to me. She must not have spoken much (or any) English, and she mimed that she wanted me to call a particular number for her. So I took the quarter she handed me, put it in the phone, punched in the number, and gave the receiver to her when someone answered. The conversation was entirely in German, and after she was done I made my own phone call. Later on, she and a bunch of other Hutterite women found our group and tried to sell us some knitted stuff (since this was in the summer, though, they didn't get any takers).

 

[RoJoHen]

If I did have human children, though, they'd damn well know how to use a pay phone.

Well, good for them. I'd be hard pressed to even FIND a pay phone. They just don't exist around here anymore.

Kids have smart phones. Most kids that I know have had smartphones since they were about 9 years old. I mean, hell, I'm only 30, but even I've had a cellphone for the last 15 years.

Maybe the cellphone-free lifestyle is more common where you live, but around here it's not. Nobody even has landlines at home anymore.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I've read recently about kids who don't know how to turn physical pages on books and magazines, since they only understand how to use touch screens.

I've read recently about kids raised by people who suck at basic parenting.

If I did have human children, though, they'd damn well know how to use a pay phone.

You'd have to be some kind of hard core ultra-savvy urban explorer just to FIND a payphone these days. It was item #18 on our scavenger hunt last summer and we thought that was fucking HILARIOUS (I actually did find one, but it took almost an hour and it wasn't a working one).

The only person I ever met who didn't seem to know how to use one was a Hutterite woman I encountered at the local Farmers' Market nearly 20 years ago.

Which is, give or take a few years, the last time that not knowing how to use a payphone would have been an inconvenience to anyone.
Blast from the past:

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Maybe the cellphone-free lifestyle is more common where you live, but around here it's not. Nobody even has landlines at home anymore.

Old people still have landlines, but mainly because they've had phone service for decades and don't want to bother loosing their old phone number.

Which, btw, is the exactly same reason anyone is still using AOL.

 

[Timewalker]

I'm not saying they're not hard to find. I'm just saying that if I'd ever had kids, I'd have made sure to teach them how to use them.

Actually, I guess I should be saying grandchildren, since any hypothetical kids I might have had would be in their 30s now.

A few years ago I was flabbergasted to see a young woman who didn't know how to use a phone with a rotary dial.

 

[RoJoHen]

Honestly, these days, you'd be better off teaching them to borrow a stranger's cellphone than go through the effort of trying to find a pay phone.

It is an antiquated and unnecessary skill.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

A few years ago I was flabbergasted to see a young woman who didn't know how to use a phone with a rotary dial.

Hell, I've USED a rotary phone and I'm not even sure how to use one.

Begging the question: why in the hell would anyone need to know how to use a rotary phone? They're practically museum pieces now. Maybe if you got locked in the basement at your great grandmother's house and have to call 911 because she's forgotten she has a basement and thinks you're a ghost...

ON THE OTHER HAND, I continue to be puzzled and slightly frustrated by kids who don't know what a VCR is.

 

[RoJoHen]

Teaching kids how to use obsolete technology would really only come in handy if they are cast in my aforementioned reality show.

 

[RoJoHen]

ON THE OTHER HAND, I continue to be puzzled and slightly frustrated by kids who don't know what a VCR is.

There's just no reason for them to know. If I had kids at an "appropriate" age, they would be 5-10 years old right now, well after I stopped owning/using a VCR. They'd never have even been exposed to it.

 

[urbandefault]

Kids would be better off learning how to build a fire, grow vegetables, and tend livestock. There may come a day when those skills are necessary for survival. :/

 

[RoJoHen]

The odds of them a) needing to use a pay phone, b) finding a pay phone, and c) having quarters to put into the pay phone happening at the same time are just so tiny.

 

[Timewalker]

Honestly, these days, you'd be better off teaching them to borrow a stranger's cellphone than go through the effort of trying to find a pay phone.

It is an antiquated and unnecessary skill.

Oh, for crying out loud. Why can't they learn to do both? I'd prefer they use a pay phone rather than hassle a stranger (who may not be friendly or willing to lend a phone in the first place). But if they couldn't find a pay phone, then asking to borrow one is reasonable.

I've been in situations here in town when the only ones around to ask have been businesses or offices, and they absolutely will NOT let anyone use their precious phones unless they're a customer/client. And even then some say no.

The public library said no, when I really needed to use the pay phone and it was being hogged by a guy who was chatting about nothing in particular and I needed it to get a cab. So I asked the librarian and she refused - just dismissively told me to find another pay phone somewhere else. Since I'm physically disabled, not very mobile, and part of everyone's property taxes go to support that damn library, the least they could do would be to call a cab once in awhile if someone really needs it and the pay phone is tied up.

Hell, I've USED a rotary phone and I'm not even sure how to use one.

Begging the question: why in the hell would anyone need to know how to use a rotary phone? They're practically museum pieces now. Maybe if you got locked in the basement at your great grandmother's house and have to call 911 because she's forgotten she has a basement and thinks you're a ghost...

ON THE OTHER HAND, I continue to be puzzled and slightly frustrated by kids who don't know what a VCR is.

It helps to know how to use a rotary phone because it might be the only phone available. I had one as recently as 7 years ago.

As for VCRs, I still have one, though it's not hooked up. I got rid of most of my tapes, just keeping ones that aren't replaceable with DVDs. Oh, and I made sure to keep my original Star Wars trilogy - the one that was released before George Lucas decided to "improve" it.

There's just no reason for them to know. If I had kids at an "appropriate" age, they would be 5-10 years old right now, well after I stopped owning/using a VCR. They'd never have even been exposed to it.

Believe it or not, there's stuff available on VHS that isn't available on DVD.

Kids would be better off learning how to build a fire, grow vegetables, and tend livestock. There may come a day when those skills are necessary for survival. :/

If they ever go on Survivor, the million dollars can come down to whether or not you know how to build a fire. There was one season where the contestants couldn't even manage it when given matches.

The odds of them a) needing to use a pay phone, b) finding a pay phone, and c) having quarters to put into the pay phone happening at the same time are just so tiny.

Which is really strange, since it's something I expect to have happen the next time I take a taxi to the local mall. If I decide to get the taxi to pick me up somewhere other than at Walmart, I'll need to go to the pay phone, put in two quarters (local pay phones cost 50 cents here), punch in the number, and tell the dispatcher where to pick me up.

There's something to be said for keeping one foot in the past so one isn't blindsided and helpless the next time there's a power outage.

 

[Amaris]

I love these kids. I love seeing how they react to older technology. What I like most, though, is that they appreciate how much easier things have become, and that it's not a bad thing to remember where we came from. It does make me feel a little old, as these kids were born when I was graduating high school, but I feel good about the future generation.

As for myself, I'm just glad I don't have to deal with FOSSIL drivers anymore.

 

[Tesophius]

I'm almost 30 and I remember using a rotary dial phone, I think you have to wait for the wheel to return to its default position before rotating the next number in. I haven't seen one since around 1991. But I wouldn't necessarily know how to use a payphone right away, but those, as far as I remember, had instructions on them, so I'm sure anyone could figure it out. It's been about 20 years since I've used a payphone, I've had a cellphone for about 15 years now and I'm probably just as accustomed to it as teenagers are, if not more. Honestly, as nostalgic as one could certainly get about the past, I wouldn't want to be stuck in the 90's. The basic access to information was very limited. I love always having the entire human knowledge at my fingertips all the time. In the 90's if I wanted to know what the tallest mountain in some X place was, I'd have to go to the library, reference some encyclopedias, basically dedicate a good portion of the day to it, lol. Although it wouldn't be fair to include all the 90's here, by 1998-99 the internet began to take the current shape, pretty much.