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Technology advances and improves faster than we can adapt to the changes. Progress has always left some people in the dust, but the tempo has increased with the dawn of the Digital Age. That means that different generations are finding less and less in common with each other than before.

If you thought that the differences between millennials (aka Generation Y) and members of Gen Z were minor, think again. Nowhere are those generation differences more obvious than when members of the older generation show kids the tech that they used when they were small, only to be met with utter disbelief.

Bored Panda has collected some of the best examples when kids today couldn’t understand the technology the millennial generation grew up with. And, boy, do we feel old looking at these childhood memories! If you’d like to feel ancient and get a burst of nostalgia for the good old days, scroll down. Remember to upvote your faves or the ones that gave you the most 90s nostalgia and share this list with your friends (especially those whose birthdays are soon approaching).

#1

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

This is a diskette, aka a floppy disc.
It stores information.

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Hans
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If you ever installed Windows 95 from floppies (many, many of them), you will not forget.

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chi-wei shen
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

MS Office in the mid-90s with Winword 6 and Excel 5 (if I remember correctly) came on more than 20 floppies. This was pure torture.

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Vincent Bevort
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

A real "Floppy" disk is 5.1/8 of an inch and really floppy. it stores 720KB. this one id a diskette and stores a whapping 1.4 MB

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Carol Emory
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had one computer prof tell me that back in the day, when PC's had 5 1/4 floppy's and Mac's were just coming out with the mini disc drives, students would come into the computer labs with a 5 1/4 disc, look at the Macs, fold the disk in half and try to insert it into a Mac. Needless to say..they didn't quite work right after that.

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glowworm2
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I used to hate these things because eventually, I would end up losing my saved file on it--something had corrupted the disk or something.

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DOGGYDOGG
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I just hated the fact that some games took like 4 discs... and you had to constantly swap them.

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Mama Panda
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I would think that this would be more of a Gen X thing than a Gen Y. I believe that the 3.5s came out in the mid 90s therefore Gen Y'ers would have been around the age of 1 years old.

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Eva Bryson
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Just tell the Gen Zs and the Gen Alphas that they're getting older with every passing minute and that they too will die.

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Bertha Garcia
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I remember in middle school this teacher made us buy this outdated floppy disk. When USB was a thing, and I was so confuse why we were using them, when I already had an USB.

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Spikey Bunny
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I still have a box of these with files on them! Guess all that info is gone now.

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Lillukka79
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My dad had a bunch of them. Bought him an external floppy drive so he could see what's in them. Worked like a charm.

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DOGGYDOGG
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Imagine growing up with a phone pretty much placed in your hands with constant internet access .. yet not knowing what a floppy disc is.. I mean.. it isn't exactly hard to find out.. than again... Gen Z isn't that intelligent and hardly has to use their brain half the time.

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DOGGYDOGG
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

No more or less the kid is an idiot welcome to Gen Z the least intelligent generation with the easiest access to information.. to bad all they do is look at tiktok videos and make memes...

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Carol Stephen
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

except it's less floppy than a 5 1/4" floppy, eh? Imagine how they would feel about the "tech" I grew up with in the 50's?? If you could call it tech...

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I am Disney
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'm part of Gen Z and i know what a floppy disc is, although i may never have had to deal with them I know what they are.

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Christine Amweg
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

A diskette is not a floppy. Floppies were before the smaller, more durable diskette.

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Faith Nicole
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I actually miss these things. I had about 10 with so much stuff saved on them, now not only do i not know where they are, but also NO computer that i would be able to put them into

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mithril
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I used the 8inch and the 5inch ones before this... oh God... I'm so f*****g old... I'm 33 :)))

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Sue Sanders
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I installed Photoshop using maybe a dozen of these at least. I thought it was the greatest thing going!

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Ronnie Beaton
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

*Scoffs* Just over twenty years ago, I worked in the press office of a local talking newspaper. We were a charity, and as such the majority of our computer equipment were donations. This meant they pre-dated Windows, used a word processing package called WordStar, and used 5 floppy discs. I've still got mine somewhere, no clue if it's still viable.

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Cream Pie
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'm 24 and I remember floppy disks very well, I've used it 🤷

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Todd Hollfelder
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The oddity here is that I know what one is but I've never used one. CD for me!

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Steve Gravel
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Uh, true floppies were 5 1/4", not these. And they were called floppies, because there were, well, floppy!

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NanZ
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I actually still have a Sony Digital Mavica camera that uses the floppies and it takes great pictures!

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Cold Contagious
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was introduced to the real floppy disk 5 1/4 black bendable pieces of plastic that you could see a round piece of film looking stuff inside thru a oval shaped window on the top of the disk where I imagine it was being read when inserted into the brand new Apple 2 model computers that the Knoxville city school system had just purchased when I was in the 6th grade. Everything outside of middle school was hard disk and upgrades ever since. I was fond of my time with my old floppies tho, it was all fun and games then.

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M O'Connell
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I have many fond memories of 'BEEP, click click click, grr grr, dun, tick tick tick tick" https://freesound.org/people/SavageFX/sounds/388192/

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Danieletc
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Oh, child. They call *this* a floppy disk. Yes, there is a floppy disk in there, but I have handled the 5-1/4 floppies ... and even the *" floppies, because OLD GEEK BAD-A*S, YOU ARE WELCOME.

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Lola
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I used to have one for each college class.

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Berlinda Dunbar-Nye
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Being older than dirt.....the floppies we used on our Apple 2C with a whopping 128 kb, were in a floppier case, literally. There wasn't a hard drive and getting one of the floppy floppies out was the first time I got to crack a computer case, while voiding my warranty. These seemed fancy when the came out. ;-)

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Treessimontrees
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I made a quiz on Sporcle about this very topic - https://www.sporcle.com/games/treessimontrees/relics-from-another-era-millennial-edition

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M O'Connell
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Because "Save" as you know it actually means "Save to disk" It dates to the era when graphical user interfaces were becoming the standard, yet hard disks were not yet large enough for general file storage. At the time the 3.5" disk was becoming dominant, which is why we use it's image instead of a 5.25" disk. That may be hard to wrap your head around, but my first computer with a hard disk drive had a 40mb (megabyte, not gigabyte). This was perfectly fine for the OS, and the application software I used, but files were best stored on removable media (which also made them portable in the days before cloud storage, or being able to email a file to yourself).

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Lara Verne
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Me and my friend once saved an essay that we needed for school. Just a few pages of text, but we still needed 2 floppies.

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MagicalUnicorn
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

good old times... remember putting my middle school presentations in those

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Bob Beltcher
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That is a hard disc, not a floppy disc. Floppy disc are the old school 5.5" disc the actually bend.

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#3

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

This is a cassette tape.
You can store music on it.
It was first developed in 1963, not the American Civil War which was fought between 1861 and 1865.

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tuzdayschild
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My dearest Emily, Gettysburgs was hell. I would never have survived without your kind and generous mixtape.

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Just to make sure that everyone’s more or less on the same page, Gen Y (millennials) refers to people born in the early 1980s and mid-1990s. In short, it’s safe to say that millennials were born sometime between 1981 and 1996, though different researchers use different definitions.

Meanwhile, members of Gen Z are considered to be those born from 1997 until the early 2010s and who grew up with digital technology and are comfortable using both the internet and social media.

#4

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

This is a fascinating device from a bygone era that lets you manually roll down the car window.
It takes some getting used to.
You have to put your hand on the handle.
And then turn the handle to open the window.
The best part is, if you turn it the other way, the window closes.
Much wow. Such mystery.

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Sivi
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I can hear my parents yelling at me to hurry up and close the window cause we are entering a long tunnel. Forget lifting weights, this was the arm workout.

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#5

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chi-wei shen
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Worst thing of all: You had to pay in order to find out how good or bad they were.

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#6

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

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chi-wei shen
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Young people also do not know that calling someone and asking 'where are you' is as young as mobile phones.

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Aside from tech and upbringing, what are the ways that the two generations differ? According to Amber Feitsma on Compan Young, Generation Z is far more pragmatic than Gen Y because of higher economic instability. Gen Z prioritizes security and stability (but, ironically, prefers experiences over material possessions which sounds counterintuitive).

And while the new generation has grown up surrounded by digital technology, it still values face-to-face interaction and tech that makes communication easy, simple, and convenient.

#7

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

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Kristy P
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My best friend and I had a notebook full of notes that we would pass back and forth. There ended up being 2 volumes. We STILL have them (graduated in 95) and trade them back and forth every few years:-)

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#9

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Calls, text messages, and mobile internet all used to cost more money than today because cellphones were considered a luxury item, while service providers incurred greater costs than nowadays.

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Nerevar
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

In Hungary 3 seconds talk were free. People looked like idiots calling for three seconds then calling back... that's how awkward mobile phone conversations was between teenagers and poor university students.

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Gen Z also blurs the lines between different devices, work, and leisure: editing documents on laptops at work, only to change a few things on the bus home (or add a flourish or two using their smart fridge while getting a midnight snack). To sum up, it’s a generation that tries to synthesize contradicting and contrasting ideas into a logical whole.

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Do you know what I’m looking forward to? Seeing how Generation Z will compare to Generation Alpha—those born from the early 2010s (and those who’ll join us on Planet Earth from the mid-2020s). Imagine the articles showing Gen A’s reactions to Gen Z’s tech. I can’t wait.

#11

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Daria B
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4 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You call this "struggle"? Pfffff..... try Windows 3.1. Or even better... DOS!

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#12

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chi-wei shen
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

...and we were happy for having these three devices. Not everyone had them.

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#13

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

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Bob Beltcher
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When I over out my parents made sure I got a phone plan with Verizon so all our calls and text would be free. That ended when I got a girlfriend and switched to T-Mobile so all our calls and text would be free lol.

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#15

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

Cellphones could store very limited amounts of data.
While it seems funny that your phone couldn't make any more space for extra messages, consider how quickly photos and videos fill up your brand new smartphone.

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chi-wei shen
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You have to keep in mind that this phone only could store tiny text messages.

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#18

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

This is a VHS tape.
You can store movies and video recordings on it.

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#19

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Hans
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Twitter needs an update when people who shout (all caps) get a posting ban for 12 hours.

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#20

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

This is an overhead projector.
It projects things over your head.

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#21

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

This is a public payphone.
You used it to call people.

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European other
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4 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Although payphones are out it's not been that long since they were everywhere

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#23

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Monday
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

ahhhh I had a silver version of this exact one as a teenager....memories....

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#24

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

This is an iPod.
It plays music.
The very first iPod came out in 2001, not 1955.
The iPod pictured appears to be an iPod Nano, the first of which were released in 2006.

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#25

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

I still don't know how to burn CDs and I'm not a member of Gen Z.
On a theoretical level, it's clear that you copy information that's on your PC onto a disc. On a practical level, I end up messing up the disc and accidentally deleting the data I meant to copy over from the computer.

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Nerevar
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4 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Read history about ancient Rome. Especially about Nero who lived in the ancient times and was the Emperor of Rome. He even burnt Rome beside CDs.

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#26

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

This is a stereo, aka a boombox.
You use it to play music and be popular.

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Marky Mark
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My siblings and I still call them Ghetto Blasters as if we were stuck in the late 70's.

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#27

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#28

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Hendra Lim
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

me, wakes up at 5 am to download some songs, because the internet provider is suck at normal times, and only got moderate speed at 2 to 6 am

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#29

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

This is a beeper, also known as a pager.
It can be used to transmit short messages or, in some cases, voice recordings.

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Rissie
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You know what's crazy? Hospitals still using these because they are so easy to use. They notify you clearly, give you a quick overview of the urgency and let you decide to call back immediately or attend to what you're doing at that point first. Leaving the decision making with the actual person while not having to set a gazilion options only to forget to turn the sound on when you were needed to save someone's life.

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#30

Old-Millennial-Things-Kids-Today-Have-No-Idea

This is a cellphone.
You use it to call people.

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Hans
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This one is odd. Even two years old normally recognize those, but consider them toys instead of things an adult would use.

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Note: this post originally had 56 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.

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