Stuff You Did as a Kid That Today's Teenagers Wouldn't Understand

Let's face it. Things are much different today than we were kids. I wrote about this last week when I mentioned that kids today need to spend more time outdoors.

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Teenagers today were born somewhere between 2001 and 2008 and by that time, life had become completely different than it was in your teenage years. Most of a kid's life is now indoors, and this morning when we mentioned this, that was one of the most glaring differences that listeners called about.

Kids today can't relate to seeing the street lights come on and know it's time to head inside for supper.

Most aren't used to things like "having chores." The website Reddit essentially asked readers to let them know about things they did as kids that would totally blow the minds of today's teenagers and some of the responses were fantastic.

Readers mentioned things like:

Using a cassette recorder to record a song from the radio
Having to set your television to Channel 3 so you could play your video game (Around here it was Channel 4 and that video game was Atari)
Calling a special phone number to get the time and temp (For us it was 425-0211 and it still works today)
Enjoying the smell of freshly printed mimeograph papers (Loved those old ditto papers)

Our listeners reminded us of several other things that also belong on the list:

Playing your favorite new album on a record player
Having to crank an old hand crank style ice cream maker
Using a clothes hanger and a playing card to make a "clicker" on your bicycle spokes
Going to the bathroom in an outhouse (and never throwing away the Sears catalog)
Using an old party line on the telephone. And for that matter, imagine a kid today trying to make a phone call on a rotary dial phone
Having to get up to change channels on the television or having to turn the antenna for your Dad because the wind had blown it a little off the stations

Life was simpler back then, you've got to admit, having that remote control really is nice.