That day, while sitting together and sharing a meal with my family, we found ourselves immersed in a fascinating conversation about the differences between generations. It struck me deeply how our generation — those of us who grew up before the digital revolution — possesses certain skills that seem to be fading away in the younger generations.
Back in the day, if we wanted to travel somewhere unfamiliar, we didn’t simply pull out a smartphone or rely on a GPS app. Instead, we had to stop by a gas station and buy a paper map. Navigating with those maps required a lot of focus and patience; we had to study the route carefully, remember key turns, and sometimes even mentally rehearse the directions before setting off. Later on, when services like MapQuest became popular, we printed out detailed step-by-step directions to carry with us on the road. These practices honed our navigation abilities and strengthened our memory — skills that many of today’s kids rarely get to develop.
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Another thing that really stood out was phone numbers. Before the era of smartphones and contact lists, we memorized the phone numbers of our family members, friends, and important contacts. I still vividly recall my old home phone number: 793-7298. Now, it’s almost unimaginable to me that my children can’t recall even a single phone number by heart because their phones store all the contacts for them. This shift has made me realize just how much we’ve outsourced our memory to technology.
Thinking about this, I feel the Millennial generation is quite unique — perhaps the last generation to truly experience both worlds: the analog past and the digital present. On the other hand, Generation Z, and even more so the youngest Gen Alpha kids, were born into a fully digital environment, where many of these “old school” experiences are completely foreign to them.
Through sharing this story, I want to remind everyone that each generation brings its own unique strengths. Sometimes, the “old-fashioned” skills we may take for granted still hold great value, even as we embrace the conveniences of modern technology. Preserving those foundational skills can enrich our lives and help us adapt in ways that technology alone cannot.
