Kids Reacting To Walkmans Will Either Make Your Day Or Ruin It

Screen Shot 2014-04-14 at 3.38.38 PMTechnology really dates things doesn’t it? Nothing like watching a movie from the nineties that could probably be pretty timeless were it not for the cellphone the main character pulls out that happens to be the size of her head. We will always be able to date ourselves by the kind of technology that was around when we were growing up. The faster technology progresses – the more obvious it is. Watching this video of kids reacting to technology is a shocking reminder of all the things that were staples when we grew up – that our kids will never know about.

When I was growing up my father drove a 1978 baby blue Cadillac Fleetwood with an eight-track player in it. I remember looking at those huge cassettes and thinking, “Why doesn’t he have a tape player? He’s so old. This car is dumb.” Of course, the car was amazing and those eight tracks played the smoothest version of “Do you know the way to San Jose” that I would ever hear in my life. I couldn’t appreciate it though because I was too busy wondering why the technology in his car was so archaic. I guess that’s how kids feel today – times a million.

Watching these kids react to a walkman is almost unbelievable. It’s like their little brains are too used to touch screens and instant gratification to figure something out in a tactile way. I’m shocked that none of these kids realized you needed headphones to hear the music – even iPhones have those. Also, “play” seems like it should be a universally understood directive.

When phone books starting becoming a completely archaic way of finding a phone number thanks to the Internet – I would guess around circa 1999 – I helped teach a journalism class to graduating high school students. One student was frustrated because she couldn’t find a listing for a company she was looking for on the Internet, and couldn’t for the life of her figure out how to get the number. I guess Google wasn’t as comprehensive back then. We were literally sitting in front of a desk full of phone books. It didn’t even cross her mind to pick on of those up.

Videos like the one above are pretty funny – but also a little scary, honestly. Are we crippling our kids with all of this at-your-fingers convenience? I’m probably analyzing this too much. Any one of these kids could most certainly show me about 30 functions I didn’t know were possible on my computer or iPhone. I think something like this is just a little tough to watch because I have such fond memories of cassettes and records. But our kids will probably be explaining iPods to their kids one day, as technology will surely advance at even greater speeds, in even more drastic ways.

(photo: YouTube)

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