Technological Evolution : Were the Eighties that Bad?

It's not easy being young, it's not easy being a teenager, it's not easy being old, it's not easy being a thirty-something..... Let's face it, it's not easy being alive these days. Back in the good old days, let's say somewhere in the eighties, we knew what we were doing. Life was easy. But then, technology evolved at warp speed and left us all clueless.....

iPod, Blackberry, HDMI, all became common words. Who still keeps up with all that? Was it really that bad that a phone was only being used to call people instead of playing music, taking pictures and check the weather forecast in Beijing? The first series of mobile phones needed a generator that could provide energy for a small village and were the size of a suitcase, now you need a magnifier to type in a number. Which is so 2007, everybody just speed-dials or uses voice commands anyway.

I started playing video games in the eighties. Pong was amazing, moving a paddle up and down seemed as big as landing on the moon. Before I realized it, my Atari changed places for a Commodore Vic 20, Commodore 64, Amiga, CBS Colecovision and so on and now I find myself in front of a big-ass LCD television screen with 7.1 surround system in a chair that vibrates to the beats, a real-sized guitar strapped around my neck, acting like a kid on acid trying to get 100% on Guitar Hero. Easy Level, obviously, I can't move my fingers fast enough to even think about trying other levels. Thank God for Youtube to show me how it's supposed to be done.

My first Walkman was a giant Lego-brick. It played tapes, which was great, as they made my father's 8-tracks look so old-fashioned. By the time I figured out how to make a mix-tape with my girlfriend's favorite love-songs (doing a horrible job with fading in and out the in- and outro's), everybody had moved on to cd's. I did a pretty good job at catching up. Or so I thought. Apparently I should have moved on to MP3's, the next big thing according to Wired, a magazine I started reading in a useless attempt to keep up with modern times. It makes for a pretty good reading, if you've got a dictionary or a 15-year old close-by. I'm sure it's just a rumor, but I've heard you can find your favorite songs on-line these days.....

Staying in touch with people used to be simple. All it took was a phone number (fixed line of course) or an address, and within 10 to 15 business days, your friend go a letter in his mailbox. 2 weeks later and you got your reply. E-mail changed the whole world, and SMS and MMS did the same thing, just faster. As a bonus, it made personal contacts completely redundant.

It took me weeks to finally find the courage to set up a MySpace page, looking for a suitable profile picture, background image, cool links to put up there. Guess what? Too freaking late again. Everybody's on Facebook now. How am I supposed to know what a FunWall is? They never taught me in high school. Yesterday my Zombie got attacked, somebody threw a pie at me, I got offered 4 drinks and I lost a game of Scrabble, and all I wanted to do was ask this girl I met in Panama whether she made it back home alright. How do people get any work done these days.

By the time this will be published, it will be ridiculously outdated. But that's okay. The world needs to move on. It is a good thing though that the music didn't change. People still listen to Spandau Ballet, right? Right?