5 Obsolete Technologies We Won’t Miss

With new technology being added to our lives, workplace, homes, vehicles, backpacks and purses every day, it is easy to forget about the little details of our daily life that are slowly being transitioned out. Depending on your age, some of these technologies may not have been as predominant in your daily life. Either way, let’s take a moment to remember and give respect to these passing trends and fads and be thankful for the new and emerging technologies that have replaced them.

• Waiting over an hour to get photos developed – Unless you are getting professional photos from an actual studio, this fad is basically dead.  Nowadays, we get the instant print variety, opt for the one hour printing or never get them developed at all. Digital format photos are easily sent via email and there are programs such as Instagram, iCloud Photo Streams and Flickr that allows image sharing to be instant.
• Running out of hard-drive space – Obviously, Cloud computing has nearly eliminated this concept all together. However, how many of us can remember the transition through the varying types of memory storage? Floppy, hard, compact, memory cards, zip drives, external hard-drives, passport mobile storage devices… With all the newest options, there are tons of options for storage of even your most unimportant data.
• Busy signals – This pesky, annoying sound seemed to find its way out with house phones. Multiple lines are a given with any phone line these days. And to be honest, who actually has the potential of two people calling them at one time, rather than sending a quick text? Either way, thank goodness we don't have to hear that anymore.
• Paying for long distance – This is a treat that I’m sure none of us miss. I also find it funny that as cell phones emerged as a common device for the majority of the population, their nationwide plans were still costly. At this time, I remember many people owning a cell phone, home phone and keeping a calling card around for cheaper rates on call abroad.
• Fuzzy reception on televisions – Since our wonderful United States of America switched over to an all-digital broadcasting system, there are no more antenna adjustments, aluminum foil, beating the side of your television or standing on one foot in the corner of the room to fix the picture. We definitely don’t miss it. 

This is just a few of the many inconveniences that have been booted from our already busy and distracted lives as students, professionals and humans, overall. A few more I brainstormed while coming up with this list was the screeching of a modem as it connects to the internet, removing the paper feed strips from the side of printed documents, and rewinding VHS tapes. Remember when having a "tape rewinder" was the newest, coolest thing? 

Furthermore, for some of us in the slightly older generation, a few items ARE missed. For example, being able to be somewhere and not be reachable from a cellphone or tracked down on FourSquare. Today’s day-in-age calls for constant updating and the only valuable information is whatever makes it to the source first. There is a lot to be said for the value of our privacy and how rare of a commodity it has become. And for some of us slightly older folks, we just miss spending time at the video arcade…wait, do they make those anymore?

DN