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Technology advances and improves faster than we can adapt to the changes. Progress has always left some people in the dust, but the tempo has increased with the dawn of the Digital Age. That means that different generations are finding less and less in common with each other than before.

If you thought that the differences between millennials (aka Generation Y) and members of Gen Z were minor, think again. Nowhere are those generation differences more obvious than when members of the older generation show kids the tech that they used when they were small, only to be met with utter disbelief.

Bored Panda has collected some of the best examples when kids today couldn’t understand the technology the millennial generation grew up with. And, boy, do we feel old looking at these childhood memories! If you’d like to feel ancient and get a burst of nostalgia for the good old days, scroll down. Remember to upvote your faves or the ones that gave you the most 90s nostalgia and share this list with your friends (especially those whose birthdays are soon approaching).

#1

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This is a diskette, aka a floppy disc.
It stores information.

Bill_Gross Report

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angryblkmanDC Report

#3

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This is a cassette tape.
You can store music on it.
It was first developed in 1963, not the American Civil War which was fought between 1861 and 1865.

EdWiley Report

Just to make sure that everyone’s more or less on the same page, Gen Y (millennials) refers to people born in the early 1980s and mid-1990s. In short, it’s safe to say that millennials were born sometime between 1981 and 1996, though different researchers use different definitions.

Meanwhile, members of Gen Z are considered to be those born from 1997 until the early 2010s and who grew up with digital technology and are comfortable using both the internet and social media.

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#4

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This is a fascinating device from a bygone era that lets you manually roll down the car window.
It takes some getting used to.
You have to put your hand on the handle.
And then turn the handle to open the window.
The best part is, if you turn it the other way, the window closes.
Much wow. Such mystery.

MarcSebens Report

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Aside from tech and upbringing, what are the ways that the two generations differ? According to Amber Feitsma on Compan Young, Generation Z is far more pragmatic than Gen Y because of higher economic instability. Gen Z prioritizes security and stability (but, ironically, prefers experiences over material possessions which sounds counterintuitive).

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And while the new generation has grown up surrounded by digital technology, it still values face-to-face interaction and tech that makes communication easy, simple, and convenient.

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kthorning Report

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hailpeezy Report

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#9

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Calls, text messages, and mobile internet all used to cost more money than today because cellphones were considered a luxury item, while service providers incurred greater costs than nowadays.

jnthnwll Report

Gen Z also blurs the lines between different devices, work, and leisure: editing documents on laptops at work, only to change a few things on the bus home (or add a flourish or two using their smart fridge while getting a midnight snack). To sum up, it’s a generation that tries to synthesize contradicting and contrasting ideas into a logical whole.

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Do you know what I’m looking forward to? Seeing how Generation Z will compare to Generation Alpha—those born from the early 2010s (and those who’ll join us on Planet Earth from the mid-2020s). Imagine the articles showing Gen A’s reactions to Gen Z’s tech. I can’t wait.

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itschelseaw Report

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#15

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Cellphones could store very limited amounts of data.
While it seems funny that your phone couldn't make any more space for extra messages, consider how quickly photos and videos fill up your brand new smartphone.

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babyak_josh Report

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#18

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This is a VHS tape.
You can store movies and video recordings on it.

HeavyMetalYeti Report

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JaIenSkutt Report

#20

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This is an overhead projector.
It projects things over your head.

kenzie_bug20 Report

#21

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This is a public payphone.
You used it to call people.

AshStoneman Report

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rauhlsbeat Report

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twheat9 Report

#24

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This is an iPod.
It plays music.
The very first iPod came out in 2001, not 1955.
The iPod pictured appears to be an iPod Nano, the first of which were released in 2006.

jodierandazzo Report

#25

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I still don't know how to burn CDs and I'm not a member of Gen Z.
On a theoretical level, it's clear that you copy information that's on your PC onto a disc. On a practical level, I end up messing up the disc and accidentally deleting the data I meant to copy over from the computer.

teriamour Report

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Nerevar
Community Member
4 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Read history about ancient Rome. Especially about Nero who lived in the ancient times and was the Emperor of Rome. He even burnt Rome beside CDs.

Panda C. Bear
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I just used a magnifying glass and the sun to burn my discs - it was easier to check your work as you went that way as well. There was nothing worse than spending 8 solid years etching out your perfect playlist by hand only to find you accidentally got a few bits backwards and are now stuck with Nickelback on tracks 3-6!

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Gabrielle Causey
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I never understood how my parents burnt CDs. I thought it was some sort of tech magic that my dad could just pull off because he was the Dad(TM) of the house.

Full Name
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Some CD's you could re-record to over and over. You had to be House of Ravenclaw in order to get it to work though.

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Randomcthulu
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I've still got a couple of spindles of blank CDs for burning "mix" CDs, depending on your MP3 compression rate you could fit a couple of hundred songs on one. This was because an MP3 compatible Discman or whatever was about $30-$50 in the early 2000s, but an iPod was several hundred dollars and I was a poor student.

Randomcthulu
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My mom laughed so hard the first time I burned a CD because I didn't know you could only put data on it once, unlike a floppy disc. We all carried little cases of floppies for school assignments in high school, I thought I was cutting down to 1 disc to carry. It took 1 CD to teach me the error of my ways lol, now I've got 3 diff thumb drives for various things.

Spikey Bunny
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Careful, I recently leaned the hard way that thumb drive data degrades and eventually vanishes!

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Marky Mark
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Burning CD's was a dark art-form. Few mastered it flawlessly. I often forgot to 'close' the volume and the CD would not work on regular CD players. Or my dog would bump the computer while it was burning and the whole project when to hell. But when it worked, Hallelujah! You had a MASSIVE 720 MB worth of music!!!!

Mary Jaye
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

that can go two ways. my mother would not know how to do that either.

Sue Sanders
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Easy. Put the original CD on your nose, and the blank one on your second toe. Chant a Buddhist mantra for no more than fifteen seconds - and there you have it. (If that fails, choose another religion.)

Shawn Barry
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Nero software was nice for burning CD's (the plastic thing, not cross dressers)

Jazmyn-Annie
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My dad still burns CDs today (he's a musician and makes his own music occasionally then puts them onto CDs)

MaryBored Pasaribu
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

NERO is a life saver.. I made my mixed playlist on CD's back then and play it on my portable dvd player... Life is beautiful..

Carol Stephen
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Listen. When I was a kid no one knew how to burn a CD. They didn't even know what a CD was. There were no CDs. No PCs. No iPods, no tablets, and at first not even many TVs. Music came on records that played at 78 or 33 1/2 rpm, on a record player, and if you were lucky enough to have a TV they certainly weren't in colour. You guys think you're old? You can't handle old! lol

ESL
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Part of the mystery for Gen Z on how CDs were burned is attributable to the fact that laptops and PCs don't have a disc drive anymore-just USB ports.

BG
Community Member
4 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I have a 2003 Chevy Silverado that has had the same CD-RW stuck in the radio for 12 years. I can play it, but not eject it.

Danieletc
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Just keep licking the blank CD with the song in your head. When the song is over, rub it under your armpit to burn. Works every time.

Tabitha L
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I burn pictures onto CD to this day. I don't know how to save large quanties of pictures in a more stable way. I tried a hard drive, it died. Flash drives are unreliable.

M O'Connell
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Flash drives are SO much more reliable than they used to be. It's worthwhile to give them another shot. Burned-at-home CDs don't have a terribly long lifespan, as the foil data layer starts to degrade.

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Steve Cruz
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Apple hasn't produced a computer with a CD drive for years. My nephew's newer car has slots for memory cards and USB ports.

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#26

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

This is a stereo, aka a boombox.
You use it to play music and be popular.

Bentleymode Report

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#29

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This is a beeper, also known as a pager.
It can be used to transmit short messages or, in some cases, voice recordings.

bloomcounty14 Report

#30

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This is a cellphone.
You use it to call people.

des_angelique_ Report

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#42

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This is a pencil sharpener.
It sharpens pencils.

wyshynski Report

#44

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This is also a cassette tape.
You can store music on it.

TheJordanMiller Report

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