and VHS
•typewriters and carbon paper
•word processors
•dot-matrix printers
•dial-up modems
•land-based telephones
•watches (worn for functionality rather than as an accessory)
•PDAs and pagers
•print newspapers and printed phonebooks
•film cameras
•analog copy machines
•book and record collections
•photo albums
Some of these obsolete analog technologies will be missed, others not so much. For instance, no one laments the demise of screechy dial-up modems. Nor is anyone pining for the days of 8-track tapes (which would frequently stop in the middle of a song and switch tracks, interrupting the music). On the other hand, cassette tapes—the technology that replaced 8-tracks—are greatly missed by many Gen Xers because you could record onto a blank cassette tape, making a “mix tape” of your favorite songs. Giving a girl (or boy) a personalized mix tape was a great way to let her (or him) know how you felt, especially if that tape contained a liberal sprinkling of sappy love songs. Sure, with current technology you can e-share a personalized MP3 playlist, but it’s not the same as handing someone a cassette you’ve spent many hours constructing.
And let us not forget the physical places traditionally required to locate, interact with, and purchase the obsolete technologies that are disappearing from the American landscape.
Obsolete or Rapidly Becoming Obsolete Locations
•video and DVD rental stores
•music and record stores
•post offices*
•public libraries (as repositories for new books and periodicals)*
•newspaper stands
•mailboxes
•bookstores
•big box electronics stores
•telephone booths
•travel agencies
*While post offices and public libraries will likely continue in some social/community-based format, their original intended purpose and need has forever been altered and made increasingly irrelevant.
“Hand” Writing
It appears, too, that the skill-set of handwriting (the one that used to cause that permanent callus on your right or left middle finger) is also rapidly diminishing. Today, children from elementary school through college have a decreased need to communicate via any kind of handwritten document, particularly in cursive. According to a 2011 New York Times article, a university professor, on a whim, asked his undergrad students to raise their hands if they wrote anything in cursive as a way to communicate. None did.4 In that article an elementary school principal says, “Schools today are preparing our kids for the 21st century. Is cursive really a 21st century skill?” For that matter, is writing anything by hand important? In response to that question, several students blogged the following thoughts:
•When kids get older, I guess they will have to use cursive to sign their names on documents, and that’s good ’cause personally that’s all I can write in cursive.
•I was done with cursive by 4th grade, so I can still read and write it, albeit slowly, but I see no practical use for this skill.
•A signature doesn’t even need to be in cursive, technically. If the purpose is to provide identification by way of your own handwriting, now I can do that with a digital fingerprint.
Today in many high schools, teachers are forced to print because the children being taught do not read cursive. As we move away from “hand” writing, schools are now requiring proficiency in computer keyboarding by the time most students finish eighth grade. By 2015, all standardized American educational tests will be administered via computer. Cursive writing—in fact, any need for a pen or pencil—appears to be less and less relevant.5
Similar changes are occurring worldwide. A recent British survey, for example, found that on average most adults engage in actual handwriting (signatures aside) approximately once every forty-one days! One in three people surveyed said they had written nothing by hand for at least six months. The last thing they wrote, according to two-thirds of those surveyed, was a hastily scribbled note, a shopping list, or a reminder meant for their eyes only.6 And in China many adults are forgetting how to draw basic Chinese characters because they type far more often than they write by hand. Many Chinese children are no longer even learning the characters. Calligraphy classes have been widely dropped in favor of science and math. Teachers themselves are less and less inclined to write, deferring instead to mouse-clicked lesson plans displayed on tablets or computers.7
And let’s face it, who can honestly recall receiving anything personal or handwritten in the mail during the past several years other than a random birthday card or thank-you note? While many digital immigrants may find this disturbing, most digital natives are unlikely to bat an eye. The natives ask: Why would I want to write by hand, let alone in cursive, when typing is so much faster and easier to read? But to an older person, for whom a handwritten thank-you note is the epitome of courtesy, it may well appear that basic handwritten notes are going into the same pile as 8-track tapes.
Gen Y versus the Board of Education
New York University professor and Huffington Post blogger Mary Quigley wrote in a July 2012 blog:
In a journalism seminar last semester, a professor strolled around the class of 15 students as they discussed a reading. The prof noticed one student typing furiously on her laptop so she peered over her shoulder. “What are you doing?” the prof asked. “I am buying airline tickets,” replied the student. “No you’re not,” said the prof as she shut the laptop, leaving the student aghast.8
As it turns out, this professor had previously won numerous awards for teaching excellence. Her classroom was not boring! Nonetheless, if one considers the neurobiological development of active young people today, whose brains experience constant rewards for multitasking, this teacher’s understanding of her student’s educational needs may soon be as obsolete as transistor radios! The simple fact is that digital natives are used to multitasking. They listen to a professor and take a note or two while simultaneously checking their email, updating their Facebook page, texting their friends, and, if the need arises, purchasing an airline ticket. Whether one’s productivity is increased or diminished by doing several things at once has yet to be studied in those individuals who’ve grown up doing just that. Nevertheless, it is clear that multitasking has become the accepted norm for digital natives. One further conclusion that may be worth noting is this: the educational advantage offered in the past to those people who could sit and quietly focus on one teacher and one subject for several hours at a time may fast be disappearing. On the other hand, those individuals who can’t focus (like those with attention
