This week I spent a moment thinking about the advice I would give to my teenage self, should I be able to go back in time but then I got sidetracked by other thoughts on modern technology.
If I went back in time there would be no facebook, no twitter even no myspace. Terms such as Blogging and vlogging would be completely unheard of, even lingo such us wtf, brb, OMG… all gone. Never mind the fact that the only internet connection came via a big box and Telkom and made that dreadful and frustrating dial up noise. Once online, if you were lucky, a webpage would take on average six to eight minutes to load. Can you imagine doing that now? Modern research has shown that on average if a webpage doesn’t load within 10 seconds it is usually closed by whoever wanted to view it.
Cellphones were literally the size of bricks and a rare commodity. Not every person in school had one.
For some reason we all managed to cope. If the phone rang and we didn’t pick up well, that meant we weren’t home.
Gossip was spread via whispers and pieces of paper not IM, BBM or SMS. If I wanted to make a new friend I would simply walk up to them and introduce myself to a complete stranger. Not knowing who they were was half the fun. Now we browse profiles and facebook which can pretty much give us an entire background check on someone before we decide if we want to be their “friend” online.
How I, my generation and those before us survived, I have no idea. It makes me wonder what the current generation of teenagers (and those in their early twenties) will look back on and wonder how they survived without it. Perhaps they will wonder about how they survived by actually reading books or buying and playing countless CD’s and DVD’s when everything is in their hands in one product.
Mp3 players are common place, tablets (I don’t mean the medication type) and ‘intelligent’ cellphones that can do everything for us.
I don’t own TV or hi-fi systems, I don’t have a huge CD or DVD collection what I do have is a notebook, the modern day version of the laptop.
After all, why would I want to own so many things that can take up so much space, when all I need is one device? It’s portable and light weight.
Should I have a party and need decent sound than I simply plug in a set of very small yet powerful speakers. If I want a bigger screen to watch movies on all I do is plug in a bigger computer screen and that is all I need.
If I told my teenage self where I would be right now and that cellphones will not only have colour screens but would go way beyond that, she would probably have asked about flying cars and the current fashions. The fashions haven’t changed much at all (retro is fashionable) and flying cars are still way in the future but we do have eco-friendly (eco-what?) and electric cars.
So after all this what was my advice to my teenage self?
• Do what I want and not what others expect of me.
• Start being kind to the environment now.
• Still go out and meet those complete strangers because that is how you will make friends for life.
• Buy shares in Microsoft.
I’m not sure how old or young you are but maybe spend a few minutes doing the same. Go back in time and visit your teenage self, look at the world that surrounds him or her and perhaps try to offer some advice.
The advice I gave to my teenage self is just as valid to me now as it was then, so better late than never. I will listen to my own words and take my own advice even though I’m not a teen anymore.
I’m off to price Microsoft share prices.
)O(
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