Pretty sure **** is cheaper now too though. I swear big screens, camcorders, and VCRs were way more expensive than today's counterparts.
I'm actually incredibly grateful I'm not a kid from today's age. Playing outside, watching Saturday morning cartoons (not the crap they pretend are Saturday morning cartoons), waiting for TGIF every Friday, actually riding bikes over to a friend's house to see if he can play, and a boatload of other things are all missed by children today. I actually think it would blow to be 12 year old right now, honestly. Hell, when I was 12, the Rockets were in the process of winning their second championship! Nothing can replace that.
It took me like 5-10 minutes to download a single image back then. Songs took 30 minutes-hour. Then someone would call the house and it would knock me off the internet so I would have to restart it. And if I wanted to use the house phone that everyone had to share, I would hear a screeching noise indicating someone else was on the internet so I wouldn't be able to make the call. Simple flip-phones were just making their way to high-schoolers. Their was no high-speed internet, HDTV, DVR, touch screens, Netflix, Youtube. I was outside every day until sun down though.
This. This. And especially this. Nowadays parents are too scared to even let their kids play outside and/or venture very far from home. We used to walk miles from home with our $10, read magazines in Walmart without purchasing anything, eat at a random fast food restaurant (I guess this hasn't changed), then walk home. Hell, I walked to school in the 3rd grade. Do kids walk/ride bikes to school anymore?
Depends on the geographical location and cultural differences. In most cases, I would say that Americans in general are spoiled with riches and are influenced by their peers.
Back in my day, mankind barely invented writing so only the cool college kids could write to communicate. The rest of us had to find the person we wanted to communicate to and speak directly to him. Kids these days are spoiled.
If kids are spoiled, it's only because their parents go overboard in what they give them without teaching them the value of what they're getting and that it's a privilege, not a right. Heck, Americans in general are spoiled. We have all the money and luxuries in the world yet still complain. Even poorer still generally have running water, an AC and food to eat. Compare that to someone living in Haiti or even some parts of Mexico. This is a humorous thread though, so I won't derail by over-analyzing. Here's my first phone: Spoiler