What About All Those Old Walkmans Lying Around?
Nothing like hearing a review of an old Sony Walkman from a 13-year-old kid to make a Generation Xer feel realllllly old. After trying a Walkman for a week (in lieu of an iPod), the modern teenager conclusion is this:
Throughout my week using the Walkman, I came to realise that I have very little knowledge of technology from the past. I made a number of naive mistakes, but I also learned a lot about the grandfather of the MP3 Player. You can almost imagine the excitement about the Walkman coming out 30 years ago, as it was the newest piece of technology at the time.
Perhaps that kind of anticipation and excitement has been somewhat lost in the flood of new products which now hit our shelves on a regular basis.
Personally, I’m relieved I live in the digital age, with bigger choice, more functions and smaller devices. I’m relieved that the majority of technological advancement happened before I was born, as I can’t imagine having to use such basic equipment every day.
Having said all that, portable music is better than no music.
Geez oh pete. I’m a dinosaur! I still have a Walkman lying around as well as a portable CD player! And those CD players are actually bigger than the tape players.
I’ve kept a Walkman because I do have some cassettes I like to listen to once in a while. (At this point, mostly self-help things, as my audio as moved to MP3 for the most part.) The “Walkman” in question is actually a Panasonic cassette player, a “sports” version, in bright yellow with black rubber grips. It’s one of those you could throw into a pool and it would still work.
So I guess I have some nostalgia for those rugged Walkmans and clones that were designed to withstand places like the beach and your neighborhood pool. iPods are almost too slick and technological. I’ve dropped that darn Panasonic cassette player 50 times or more and it still plays 15 years later. I seriously doubt my iPod would survive such a beating.
So should we just chuck our old electronic portable devices out the window and fill up more landfills? Or gift them to our progeny, giving them a taste of electronics gone by?
