is there an app for that?

Today I stumbled upon a YouTube video of a 12-year-old girl divulging advice to her peers on dating boys in middle school.

When I was in seventh grade, there was no YouTube. In fact, I can’t really remember what the internet was like before “Google” became a verb. I didn’t have a cell phone, let alone a smartphone with a webcam like the advice-dishing seventh grader. I called my friends on their land lines. People actually had land lines.

There were no ipads, nooks, or automated books to make reading more comfortable. I packed in paper-bound novels into my backpack, along with my ruler and pencils. We didn’t carry around laptops in our backpacks either. It was a time before Facebook, Twitter, or Gchat; until college, most of my peers used AOL Instant Messenger to communicate with each other. Videos were shot with video-cameras and photos were taken with non-digital cameras.

Besides realizing that I’m old and that technology has changed the “childhood” experience in the last ten years, what is my point? Aside from watching a braces-touting preteen counselor today, I also ordered a smartphone. I succumbed. I’m always a little tardy on the tech bandwagon, but what I’ve realized is that it doesn’t matter how long you resist: technology is going to continue advancing, and we will all eventually need to be somewhat tech-adept to survive in the workforce. (But that doesn't mean we can't reminisce over simpler times.)

My main purpose in buying a smartphone, however, was for the navigation capabilities. Sure, it will make other things easier, but since I’m relocating to a notoriously unsafe city, I would like to evade losing my way. What people did do without cell phones when they got lost, only ten or fifteen years ago?

Then I remember my seventh grade: I would have used a paper map, or called someone for help with a payphone. Remember those? Google it, 90s babies.