8 Ways How to Compete with Today’s Generation with Old Ways

8 ways how to compete with today’s generation with old ways.

In this age where if you are not connected to the world of electronics, well, let’s face it, we are called old. Therefore this will not come to you as a surprise that us, old folks, being in my 50th, I do not feel old and can still outwit you, I have been thinking of ways that we can compete with the new generation via old, to their standard, ways of handling a few things.

After all the below is not a distant past.

So let’s have fun, shall we?

Cursive

Our kids can type faster, not better, than anyone’s business. However, give them a cursive letter to read, and here comes the deer on headlight look.

Either it has to be all capital letters, or they are dead in the water. The art of writing is becoming a thing of the past with sadness.

Typewriters vs. computer

I love my computer and will not trade it in for any reason. However, not long ago, I had to do all my school papers on a typewriter. To start you had to press down on the keys to type.

The ink better not run out on you, and making a mistake was a sure retype.

How would the new generation handle that? Having to pay attention to the end of the page. Starting a new paragraph so a sentence was not cut awkwardly.

Make any mistakes, and have all your ideas in an orderly form, so you did not have to waste so much paper typing and retying.

This can be a fun challenge to have, don’t you think?

Dictionary

What was life before google? A great one. The dictionary not only showed us how to write a word correctly and how to apply it to different meanings within the word, but we learned so much more.

We had all that information there for us to read and learn. Applications, different grammatical structured, and a few replacements can be used in the way too.

With Google, it only gives you what it feels is necessary, and we do not go any further than that, losing such a great opportunity to learn.

Auto-Correct

And then, of course, there is auto-correct which is a detriment to society.

As English is my third language, auto-correct is the biggest mistake you can make.

How do you know if the word is the right one? Do you let a machine decide what is right or search for the correct answer?

Telephone

Do you remember those old phones that either were on the kitchen wall or in the living room? Talk about lack of privacy?

Let’s start with the rotary phone itself. Not only did your finger better not make a mistake, or you are rolling it around another seven times, but you had to remember the phone number too.

That is where your phone book came in handy. With today’s convenience of saying “Suri, call mom” not too long ago, you better know your parent’s phone number.

No call waiting either, and if your parents called home and the phone was busy, well, it was not a pretty conversation when they got home.

And if you think you do have not enough privacy now, imagine having a conversation where not only everyone could listen to what you are saying, they had the opportunity to pick up another phone in the house and listen in.

If you were lucky, you had a long, very long cord where you could hide in a closet or anywhere more comfortable to have some privacy until someone needed to make a phone call, and here they were listening in.

Do you think our children today could handle no privacy at all?

Cars

This one is my favorite. No power steering. Stick shift. No power windows. No line crossing warning or too close to another automobile. No car phone, the horror of it? How to survive such a hard lesson?

Can you imagine having to parallel park your car manually and not with the help of a button?

Or go uphill and use the hand brake to not roll backward. Give it enough gas that you can move upwards and having to release the hand brake at the perfect moment to create enough traction so forward you go.

Yes, I forgot. No four-wheel drive either. I am having way to much fun here.

Music

Put the needle on the record. 33 or 45 LPs, cassettes, and eight tracks.

You actually had to buy a record, and then if you were the fortunate one, record it on a cassette via a player, which was a challenge in itself.

Recording a song from the radio? The timing was everything and you kept your fingers crossed that no one decided to talk over a song, your favorite song.

How to time it perfectly? Call your radio station and ask the Dj to play your song. Usually, within the hour, it was on the waves, but you had to wait.

No iTunes, Spotify, Sirius, or what new today app is available. No Shazam helping you figure out who is playing on the radio.

Cars with a radio that you manually had to turn to and no pre-program and switch with a push of a button.

Television

There was no remote control, but you had to physically change the channel. No thousand programs. No smart TV.

Fast-forwarding a bit on time and recording a movie on a VHS, not a DVR.

We were the cat’s meow if we had a VCR, which is the same concept as a music cassette, but larger and for television, just in case.

I am sure I am leaving out so much, meanwhile, with the above, some of us old folks can actually do things, but I am not so sure the new generation can or will be able to handle it.

xoxo

Giangi