Son, when I was your age....

[Paa Langfart]

When I was a kid my cousin and I would stay at each other's house for a week every summer. At my cousins place,  our entertainment consisted of walking 2 miles to town ( population 300 ) where we would while away the afternoon by first stealing a pack of cigs from the one store in town and then hanging out at the local cold storage plant on their scaffolding and smoking till we puked.  Then we'd walk back to his house - if we were lucky we'd be able to thumb a ride part of the way back.   How many 10 year olds hitchhike these days?

 

there was even less to do at my place.

[DC Amp]

My best friend's house had a color TV  ;)

[Squirrel]

Only 3 channels on tv. NBC and PBS came in clear.  Only time I could watch ABC was clear days/nights and I could never get CBS.

Was lucky to go to town once a month and usually only to get a haircut and dont even think about asking for something. 

Didnt have paint guns.  If you wanted to play war it was with BB guns.

 

 

 

 

[Mr. Scot]

I always enjoyed trying to explain how a presidential speech ruined the entire night. It was on all 7 channels and there was literally nothing else to watch.

Kids today will never get that.

No, we couldn't just switch it to TNT or USA.

[Chimera]

That's why I liked WJZY back before its UPN / WB / CW / Fox days. That station was like "f the speech, here's some 3 Stooges"

[thefuzz]

Had a black and white tv in my bedroom when I was a kid. No way my parents were springing for a color one. That "change the channel walk to turn the knobs" struggle was real.  My first gaming system came in a plastic bag filled with Army men.  My first bike was a Miami Dolphins themed Huffy with a banana seat. That 1978 Christmas when I got the orignal Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader,etc was epic along with 50 Hot Wheels cars. 

 

My 11 year old doesn't understand what "go outside and play" means. We used to make our own toys out of sticks and rocks when we broke the toys we had.  Mom and dad didn't run back to Roses or K-Mart to buy another one.  I could play in a creek for hours, hunting crawdads, making dams, and watching my leaf "boat" go faster than my friends.  If I told my daughter to go play in the creek she'd think I was crazy and punishing her.

 

Our kids generation lacks imagination in so many ways when it comes to play. Oh sure they can imagine the next cool tech gadget but give them a rope, a cracked frisbee, or a tarp and they wouldn't know what to do with it (I have about 6 ideas for just those items alone).

 

When I was your age....

I'm actually a little scared for this generation, for those reasons.

I didn't do as much outside as far as "work" like working in tobacco, or painting the barn as my parents did, but we still had to be outside almost all the time.  Building forts, shooting sling shots, making rope swings...etc.  Many of the kids/my nieces and nephews have no idea how to even start this stuff.  

[rayzor]

my daughter is allowed to use my tablet for only about an hour a day while school is in. on break that is extended by an hour or two. she doesn't really watch tv much. she wants her own tablet and she's talking about getting her own phone, but she's only 7 and she won't be getting a tablet for a couple more years and she won't get a phone until she's driving. i'll do the same thing with my 10 month old when she gets older. I've seen all to often the problem that comes with having too much technology so young. it keeps them from living life. my daughter runs around with her cousin outside and does a lot of the things i used to do when i was a kid.

imo, the reason kids don't have an imagination and are so stuck to devices is because we allow it and buy that crap for them. it's also the example we set for them. they always want/demand/expect the newest  gadgets because we adults do it. we are addicted to tech and can't function without it. that's what our kids see and what they are becoming. it's not a good thing.

[Davidson Deac II]

Couldn't sneak to watch porn. The beeps and boops informed the whole neighborhood you were getting online.

Internet?  I remember sneaking behind around the back of the drive in theater in Winston to climb up in a tree and watch it.  This was when betamax was in its infancy stage and you still had to go to a theater to watch porn. 

 

Three of us stayed there for about 10 minutes, got bored and left. 

[t96]

Try explaining to a kid today what it was like to have decide which one (or maybe two) albums they wanted to take with them when they left the house to listen to in their portable music device.

 

That is if they didn't want to carry the small suitcase full of cassettes.

Or how about what it was like when to not have a portable music device other than the car radio.

[Chimera]

Or how about what it was like when to not have a portable music device other than the car radio.

Boom boxes. And like 16 D cell batteries.

[t96]

Boom boxes. And like 16 D cell batteries.

not until the 70s

[Chimera]

my daughter is allowed to use my tablet for only about an hour a day while school is in. on break that is extended by an hour or two. she doesn't really watch tv much. she wants her own tablet and she's talking about getting her own phone, but she's only 7 and she won't be getting a tablet for a couple more years and she won't get a phone until she's driving. i'll do the same thing with my 10 month old when she gets older. I've seen all to often the problem that comes with having too much technology so young. it keeps them from living life. my daughter runs around with her cousin outside and does a lot of the things i used to do when i was a kid.

imo, the reason kids don't have an imagination and are so stuck to devices is because we allow it and buy that crap for them. it's also the example we set for them. they always want/demand/expect the newest  gadgets because we adults do it. we are addicted to tech and can't function without it. that's what our kids see and what they are becoming. it's not a good thing.

My oldest son will be 13 in a few months. I was telling him just a few days ago about my first "job". In rural (at the time) Cabarrus County, one of my neighbors ran a rodeo. So, I got a job shoveling horse and cow poo, building fences, and other handiwork around the place for a wonderful(for the time) $5 per hour. Got paid cash at the end of every day. I really wanted a pair of Nike Air Max 2s. 3 hours a day, 3 days a week... Took almost a month. Now my son is almost that age, has a pair of Nike KDs, a tablet, a phone, PlayStation, Wii U, etc and constantly complains about being bored. I figure at the end of the summer will be a good time to take a paid vacation from work and go camping for two weeks with absolutely no electronics at all. That means going into the woods to find dead, dry wood and splitting it all ourselves, fishing for our meals, etc. I hope it will snap him out of it for a little while.

[rayzor]

My oldest son will be 13 in a few months. I was telling him just a few days ago about my first "job". In rural (at the time) Cabarrus County, one of my neighbors ran a rodeo. So, I got a job shoveling horse and cow poo, building fences, and other handiwork around the place for a wonderful(for the time) $5 per hour. Got paid cash at the end of every day. I really wanted a pair of Nike Air Max 2s. 3 hours a day, 3 days a week... Took almost a month. Now my son is almost that age,

has a pair of Nike KDs, a tablet, a phone, PlayStation, Wii U, etc

and constantly complains about being bored. I figure at the end of the summer will be a good time to take a paid vacation from work and go camping for two weeks with absolutely no electronics at all. That means going into the woods to find dead, dry wood and splitting it all ourselves, fishing for our meals, etc. I hope it will snap him out of it for a little while.

i think i found your problem. giving kids more stuff doesn't keep them entertained. people get bored with gadgets. thats why they are always trying to update. kids do the same thing. it's an addiction that will never be filled.

i think the vacation from all that stuff is a step in the right direction. it might help him realize that there is life away from that stuff. hopefully he won't go running back to it when you're done.

[stankowalski]

 

Why, when I was your age I would spend hours upon hours typing in code from the pages of computer magazines into my commodore 64 to play a game. The slightest error would cause the game not to play. Countless hours just typing line by line, character by character. And at the end of the day I would get to control a pixelated balloon on the screen. But it was my balloon dammit. 

I did the same thing.  Thought I was some sort of genius lol.