« bean sprouting | Main | little updates and miscellanea »
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
ten ways the world has changed
I am plotting (I even have notes) a longish, serious blog post. Meanwhile, it's been a really long time since I've done a meme, and Michael presented me with one that was hard to resist.
Ten ways the world has changed since I was in school:
- Number one would have to be the Internet. I mean, it definitely existed in 1993, but almost nobody had it in their homes and I don't think our school even had it in the library yet when I graduated (although it might have). Now everyone from my three-year-old nephew to my eighty-one-year-old grandmother knows how to use it. And this extends to the proliferation of computers in general. Kids in some schools get laptops issued to them like textbooks. As far as I know there was no such thing as a laptop in 1993, and I was really excited to pay ONLY $425 for a used 386 with TWO WHOLE MEG OF RAM. I honestly do not remember the hard drive size. T, a little help?
- The outsourcing of labor to overseas markets. This has caused a major shift in the American employment scene (granted, not so much around here), with factories closing and companies moving their production to Asia, where the labor is cheaper. It's also caused the prices of computers, components, and other electronics to plummet. I'll never forget going to buy our second inkjet printer. We bought our first one at Staples in 1997 or so for $300. We used that one until it died, and then a friend gave us his old one when he got a new one and we used that one until it died (or until it ticked us off so much with its utter inability to pick up paper that we shot it full of holes, one of the two), and then we went to price new printers and see what we were in for. This was maybe 2001. We were braced to have to save up $250 or $300; imagine our surprise when the most expensive printer on the shelf was under $100, and the models comparable to the ones we were used to were $40. (They still didn't pick up paper.)
- We're teetering on the brink of another depression. (That's pretty recent. Does it count?)
- I think gas was around $1.25/gallon when I graduated. And weren't we all mad to see it over a dollar!
- When I started high school, I had never seen anybody except really out-there punk rockers with unnatural hair colors. While I was in high school, a few cutting-edge alternative types dyed their hair "eggplant". Now ten-year-old boys go around with spiked blue hair and nobody thinks anything of it. (Or was that five years ago? I lose track easily.)
- Fashions, obviously. When I was in high school, I would have been laughed off campus if I'd worn flare-leg jeans and the strappy little tank tops that are de rigueur now. Also, we still believed in tucking in our shirts -- at least the shirt that we wore under the baggy flannel one.
- I think in 1993, the children and teens who called their elders by their first names were still the exception, offspring of hippies who never got over being countercultural. Now my children are the freaks because they're actually polite and deferential to people who could be their great-great grandparents. Go figure.
- Homeschooling was not quite under the radar when I finished school, but it was definitely not the near-mainstream movement that it is today. Everyone's heard of it now, and most people know someone who's doing it.
- In 1993, if I remember correctly, homosexuality was out of the closet but still stigmatized. Nowadays, schools have "coming-out days" and teenage girls experiment with bisexuality because it's cool.
- Sexual mores: It took the culture of the 90's to make sex on the second or third date something that was almost expected, instead of something that only the easy girls did. And when I was a teen, I would probably estimate that people who lived together before marriage were still (barely) outnumbered by those who didn't. I sincerely doubt that's the case anymore -- living together is done so casually that even the phrase "before marriage" has pretty much been dropped.
Looking back over my list, it's mostly negative stuff, which I didn't really mean it to be. Life's good now, too. :) Just... different. (And hey, I've found that even mid-rise jeans aren't so bad.)
Comments
Interesting list!
I felt the same way when I'd finished my list-- that much of it was negative. I have a feeling most lists of this type end up that way. "When *I* was growing up. . ." ;o)
Posted by: Michael at June 3, 2008 11:52 AM
All true and things are kind of scarier now but on a personal level, I am MUCH happier now, even with unflattering fashions in jeans...
Posted by: Beck at June 3, 2008 04:36 PM
Thank you. Now I have something to write about. Question...Schools really have "Coming Out" days? That's creepy. Brave New World, here we come. I remember when I had my truck, it cost $10 to fill it up. I feel like some old-timer reminiscing about when it cost a nickel to go to the movies - "And that included popcorn and a pop!" We ARE teetering on the brink of a depression and it is scaring me. I feel like I need to do something, but what? Nobody cares...It's like this city is filled with numb clones who wander around shrugging their shoulders while their pockets become emptier and emptier.
Posted by: jenn at June 4, 2008 01:10 PM
