Ten years from now, my kids will be teenagers and I do wonder what kind of future awaits them in terms of technology and the opportunities to succeed in this world. Today’s gizmos will surely be obsolete, video calls will be the standard means of communication, and Man will have lived on the moon or landed on another planet.
I am raising this matter because Jmom from our Google group forwarded this email about the perks of growing in today’s technologically-advanced world. It is aptly titled “Letter to the Younger Generation.” Do you remembering growing up in the 80’s when…….?
“ We didn’t have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!
There was no e-mail! We had to actually write somebody a letter.. with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get (to the intended recipient)!
There were no MP3’s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to
hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!
No Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that’s it! They might never call again! And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was!
No fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like “Space Invaders” and Asteroids” and the graphics were terrible!
No cable TV! If there was, it was only something like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!
And we didn’t have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up . We had to use the stove!… ”
If I may add, there were no digicams, only manual cameras where we had to finish all 36 shots before taking the film to the developer. And the pictures would always come bulky in our photo albums.
Oh yeah, I also remember the 80s when Betamax was the cutting edge in video technology; Madonna, Prince, A-ha, the Go’Gos and the Police reigned in the airwaves. I remember dancing to “Boys Do Fall in Love” in the JS Prom and reading Hardy Boys/ Nancy Drew mysteries in the library. Sharon Cuneta was then Concert Queen and Martin Nievera was happily smooching Pops on national TV via Penthouse Live. My sisters wore thick shoulder pads on their blouses and it was fashionable to make your hair upright and stiff with lotsa Aquanet. We can only shudder at what we wore then but it surely brings a smile on our faces to remember those days!
Back to reality: some say that today’s youth are so engrossed with the boob tube and computer games that they wouldn’t know anymore how to compose decent sentences or appreciate the arts. I can only say that there’s something unique and noteworthy about every generation. My kids may not be writing their diaries on the finest paper but I still hope that they will take after their parent’s discernment and still appreciate great literature. I still hope that they are imbued with my resilience, independence and emotional strength. Parents like me will stop worrying once we accept our children’s latent abilities to shape the future they want to build for themselves.
hahaha! tama, natawa ako, lalo na dun sa stealing of music. hehehe.
I like this entry. I’m a child of the seventies. We didn’t have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X boxes, video games , cable TV with over 100 channels , VCR’s, surround sound , cellular phones , computers , online chatrooms etceterra. Instead we were always having dance parties and going home before midnight (martial law had a curfew then at 12 midnight).
With all the game consoles, their fingers are doing the most exercise. I’ve actually met a kid who had some kalyo on his thumb from playing all day from the playstation. Good thing my kids have learned to exercise as part of their routine.
Thanks for sharing your own recollections Noemi 🙂 The reason why I subscribed to DSL at home was to satisfy my son’s affinity with the computer. But at the same time I’ve resisted in buying him PS2. I think parents have a big role in curbing our children’s addictions, as you said by exposing them to sports, the arts, the great outdoors and what have you. I am sure that like us they will turn out all right:)
hey ju, naalala ko tuloy ang nakaraan! Haha — all those highschool and college memories. I think I never really grew out of that era.
… I featured you on my blog…
Anna Lyn, hahaha. Too many high school memories.Thanks for the feature. I will link to you too in my next post:)
Thus I always say: be underground. If not, we are all doomed to remember such things as: Bla-bla shoes, Tretorn even, Espadrilles, The Clash, Live Aid, Band Aid, AIDS, Aztec Camera, New Order, Big Audio Dynamite, Mobiles (not mobile phones silly, but mobile sound-system solutions), The Cars, Jovit Moya & the rest of the That’s Entertainment gang led by Mon Alvir, Gene Loves Jezebel, Corinthian Gardens parties, Tia Maria’s, Shakey’s Pizza, jogging to be fit at the OLD Baywalk on Sundays, Haruta, BMX bikes, E.T., The Lost Boys, Breakfast Club, Stand By Me, Judd Nelson, The Lowe bros, the Feldman bros, Toyota Corolla DX & GL full raised, Corona Machos, EDSA, John en Marsha, Disneyland Anaheim, retro Beatles, Human League, Taho, Violent Playground, Deans December, Reader’s Digest, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Lakers vs. Celtics, Industry (State Of The Nation song), Volkswagen Passat, the new MIA (later NAIA) airport, Coca-Cola yoyos, He-Man, The A-Team, Knight Rider, wise guys, Incubus Supubus, U2, National Geographic, Family Computer, Virra Mall, Shoppesville, Shoppersville Loyola, stupid slumbooks (which morphed into Friendster), human resources agencies, first beer, The Smiths, YMCA, Mustang top-downs, Benzez, G.I. Joe action figures, Nova Fontana Greenhills, BAGETS, FORGETS, Makati, Quad, Greenbelt, Cubao and the Fiesta Carnival, C.O.D. and the yearly XMAS tableau, Cartimar, Cash & Carry, Reebok, Nike, balikbayan box, Devo, Yosi, Halfway-Inn Anapolis, BF Paranaque, McDonald’s Greenhills, Siouxie And The Banshees, Antioch, Subic Bay, Ermita bars (red light district), Hong Kong, Crispa vs. Toyota (Rudy Soriano!), Ninoy, Tie A Yellow Ribbon On The Ole Oak Tree song, Gradeschool, haaaah, the list goes on…
half of my teen age years were out of phils already
but this is a great memory lane
ah those blouses with paddings
since I was here in 1984 I remember going to school with my wool knee length trousers which is now back in fashion
madonna vs cyndi lauper
ok michael jackson’s thriller
and yes i have all colours of espadrilles
Karl, sorry I cant remember Mon Alvir:grin: That’s a great list you have there, you are certainly a true child of the 80s. However it seems you forgot Happy feet, Chuck Taylor, Vans shoes, Jingle Magazine (or was it songhits), we forum, Mr & ms, mod magazine, Snooky, Maricel, Aliwan komiks, zuma, penguin cafe, moviola, talking heads, a-ha, frankie goes to hollywood, go-gos, the police, and countless others. it’s quite rattling just trying to remember:cool:
sha, don’t forget the leggings!!
Mon Alvir was a short-lived celebrity. He was our neighbor in Sta Ana in the 80s and had lots of cars then. He now lives in the US, somewhere in the east coast. I have one more: The Tigers led by Jojo Alejar; he’s a friend of mine.
LOL..i was about to say Jojo Alejar the dancer Karl, I didn’t have an inkling you know each other. And wait, I think the MTV started in the 80s too..or was it American Top 40??!
I think it is different. Anyway I forgot the first MTV (which yeah, started in the 80s). Anyway, American Top 40 was hosted by Casey Kasem ba? His son was a host of MTV in the 90s, Mike Kasem…I think.
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Nova Fontana finally folded when owner died in 2008.
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