Little Black Box

Yesterday, I was reminded of something Melanie had said a few weeks ago that just made me laugh and wonder about technology and how it shows our age.

Melanie came home from school and told me – Mommy, at school today, we watched a movie.  The teacher put this little black box into another box and it played on the TV.  It was cool!

I realized that she was talking about VHS tapes!  Wow, she has no idea what they are. 

When I was around her age, my parents got a VHS recorder and player.  It was so huge and the recorder was separate from the player and had cables that ran to the movie camera.  That camera must have weighed 20 lbs! Now they have movie cameras on our cell phones!  We had to rent movies.  We thought we were so cool to be able to make movies and to not have to need a projector and screen to view them.  We could view them on our TV!  Wow, that was state of the art!  All Melanie knows about are CD and DVD’s!  No recollection of  8-track or records or Beta!  I can vividly remember playing a few records on our record player and a few 8-tracks of say Kenny Rogers or Crystal Gale on the 8-track player in my Dad’s trucck, then it all went to cassettes! We won’t even mention just how badly I wanted a walkman and never got one!  Jason got one when they first came out – his Dad was into the new gadgets.  He also had an Atari when they first came out!  We never had a video gaming system until I was in high school!

I wonder if her children will not even know what a DVD or CD is, as all media is sure to be streamin by then!