We recently had SAGE reach out to us about sponsoring a piece of content that demonstrated the benefits of their security and home automation
ecosystem, but as I was sitting on the couch, tinkering with their hub that connects to your TV,
I realized something. My son, who just turned 4, wasn't impressed at all...
...by the idea that the doorbell ringing could trigger a notification on my phone and a picture-in-picture view of whoever standing outside!
He took it completely for granted!
So I was inspired to create this list of seven differences between when I was his age,
and today.
[Linus Tech Tips intro]
[Linus Tech Tips intro] "Nyan Cat ain't got nothing on me"
First things first, when I was the same age as my eldest son, all of my toys required me to
do all the voices and the actions myself.
This friggin' thing would have completely blown my mind. It even knows his name!
[imitation of horse neighing] "I'm pretending to be a horse!"
And that's not the only thing that does all the work for you! I mean,
Berenstain Bears Visit the Dentist is great and all, but this... *this* is progress.
[E-reader speaking; inaudible]
Number two: Video games were... nostalgia filter aside,
objectively worse. And I was one of the lucky ones. I had a Game Gear! I mean, that thing had a colour screen back in 1990!
Just too bad it only stayed on for about three hours every time you put six AA batteries in it,
a practice that would probably make the mobile games with...
auto-save generation say, "Very cringe, much old man technology..." if they even say that anymore.
Number three: Movie content may have been similar or better.
I'll put Homeward Bound up against Django Unchained or whatever any day, but finding physical media,
realizing it's not rewound!?
My kids won't even know that those were innovations!
To put it in context, I graduated high school
when YouTube was invented, and my kids will take for granted that watching any video they want
is as simple as clicking an icon,
not to mention the constant interruptions. If the doorbell rang during *my* Saturday morning cartoons,
I had to get off my butt and go see who it was, which...
Okay, so nothing quite like that ever happened—
—you can tell 'cuz I'm standing here today. But, this is one of the coolest things about the Sage home automation system.
You've got a picture-in-picture view of the scary guy,
so you've at least got a few-second headstart to go... hide under your blanket!
Number four: While I'm pretty sure that every generation thinks homework is a total drag,
trust me kids, it was worse when I was a kid.
I mean, that was even before
Encarta encyclopedia on CD-ROM, when we had to actually sign out actual books from an actual library, most of which were
horrifyingly out of date because, "Yay, school funding!" And don't even get me started on pens!
I mean, between the Backspace button and
Wikipedia—which may not be perfect, but it's a great starting point—the new generation's only excuse for being uninformed is pure laziness.
Which leads us pretty well into number five.
When I was already snuggled up in bed in the winter and I wanted to turn off the lights,
I had to get off my butt and turn off a light switch—or if I was one of the cool kids,
I might have had a clapper.
Just don't install those things too close to each other.
"Hey!"
By contrast, there is an entire generation of people
for whom not being able to control lights with a phone or a smartwatch is gonna be completely unthinkable.
Number six: Communication was a completely different animal.
"Thank you" cards were written by hand!
I'm pretty sure my son has Grandma on Facebook. And for voice communication,
you actually had to... remember your friend's number, or look it up in the phonebook.
"Everyone just doesn't understand me. You know?" And even then, privacy was never a guarantee.
"Like if- if they'd just listen, then- then they would understand me better. You know?"
"Just a sec... Hey! Is someone listening!?" This... this is awesome!
Seven is one thing that may have actually seemed better at the time. Coming home after school, there was pretty much
no way for my parents to know if I was actually practicing the piano or not.
But... from a parent's perspective, being able to check in on the home and see if workbooks are actually being completed is a
pretty big boon.
Number eight: Music playback has definitely improved.
CDs brought improved audio quality and easy track skipping,
but even that improvement over cassette tapes sucks compared to subscription music services that cost the same as a
handful of albums per year would have, especially when you factor in that most of the songs weren't even things that you'd like.
With that said though, you could make the argument that the quality of the music itself hasn't changed much.
So thanks for watching, guys! If this video made you cringe,
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