Life
How Using '90s Technology Made Us Better Adults
The '90s helped us be better adults today in various ways. Using '90s technology certainly taught us a lot about life. Technology in the '90s was quite basic. We had home phones and beepers. Cell phones were huge, only made calls, and it wasn't a "normal" or expected thing to have one. We recorded music from the radio onto tapes and watched movies on VHS. We carried around Discmans and later Walkmans, and we used Napster to illegally download mp3 files at the Millennium. We had to compete with phone lines just to use super slow internet. Kids today will never understand.
Having to go through all that difficulty, and use all those dinosaur technologies, was, however, a blessing in disguise. It primed us to be the wonderful, amazing, stupendous adults we are today. Living through the '90s and dealing with '90s technology was about patience and resolve, and above all else, being able to live without technology (that's how annoying '90s technology could be: sometimes you'd just ditch it an go without). If you didn't experience it for yourself, too bad. If you did, here are the many ways in which using '90s technology helped to make us better adults today.
1. It Makes Us More Patient
Remember what it was like having to wait for your parents or siblings to get off the phone just so you could use the internet? And then having to not only wait for the dial up to connect, but for your web pages to load once you were connected? Or having to rewind a VHS? Or trying to find your favorite song on a tape? Being patient with technology in the '90s probably makes you a more patient adult today.
2. It Makes Us More Appreciative
As an adult, you probably have moments when you're so blown away by how far technology has come, you're more grateful for it.
3. It Makes Us Able To Switch Off
Technology in the '90s was pretty crap, so a lot of the time instead of "going on the internet" or doing something anti-social, you'd be able to switch off from distractions and "be in the moment" — something you carry on into adulthood.
4. It Gives Us Real "Back In My Day" Stories To Bore The Pants Off Of Kids And Make Ourselves Feel Wise
You wouldn't be the best adult you could be if you didn't have a bunch of "back in my day" stories to make kids roll their eyes over. You can thank '90s technology for that.
5. It Taught Us How To Be Responsible For Our Belongings
Things like CDs scratched REALLY easily in the 90s. And if you dropped your Discman on the ground it was pretty much guaranteed to snap apart. Nineties technology made you protective of your stuff, and you likely guard your smart phone zealously from breaks now.
6. It Taught Us To Take Pride In Our Things
As well as being responsible for our things, we were proud of them. We cleaned our CDs and CD players, and had lovely pouches and bags and carriers for all our valuable tech. Hopefully as an adult we still have those prideful habits when it comes to the things that get us through our day.
7. It Let Us Create Some Pretty LOL Memories
Thinking back on all the cute things you used to do, like sit pensively by the radio trying to press "record" at just the right second on the tape deck to record your favorite song without getting the DJ's voice in, you get some pretty good memories to make you a well-rounded adult.
8. It Gave Us Good Handwriting
Pity the children of now who have no idea how to use a pen because all they do is type, and bless our painstakingly developed gorgeous cursive.
9. It Allowed Us To Learn How To Love Non-Screen Related Things
Your love of reading in the '90s was probably because you had less screens around you than people do now. Your love of reading now is probably because the lack of technology in the '90s allowed you to develop it.
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10. It Made Us More Creative
You had to make your own fun in the '90s (and probably every era before smart phones), so you'd write stories, draw pictures, and generally use your imagination, which gives you skills and hobbies and passions you still have as an adult.
11. It Taught Us How To Be Resourceful
Figuring out how to use a pencil to rewind a tape that's come undone or fixing a Nintendo console was like breathing to a '90s kid. The resourcefulness you developed as a kid is probably something you still have today.
12. It Gave Us The Ability To Get Genuinely Excited About New Things
These days people tend not to get so excited when new technology comes out. There's just too much of it. But in the '90s everything new was cause for great celebration. As an adult, you probably still carry this excitement for the new around with you.
