Memory Lane

I often think that I grew up in the best era. And I’m not talking about as a ‘millennial’ but as a ‘90s kid’. I’ve had this conversation a number of times with friends my age, but if you’re not fortunate enough to be considered a 90s kid, and you’re reading this, you probably disagree with me (perhaps thinking your generation is far superior). But hear me out for a minute, because I think I make a pretty good argument…

You see myself, my brother and our friends grew up at a time where we played in the great outdoors, using our imaginations to entertain ourselves. I’m not even ashamed to admit that two of my close friends and I would put on some of Mum’s old harness racing gear (meant for the horses) and trot or pace around our front lawn, or around an actual track. We climbed trees, followed the stream at the back of our house to the tunnel that went under the road, and I definitely ate worms more than once. My friend, our brothers and I would play tag team wrestling on the trampoline, and there was once a group of us went kayaking in the big drains that separated the roads from the dairy farms near my primary school. I have countless fond memories that involve the outdoors, and are probably the reason that the Playstation 1 that Mum and Dad bought us for Christmas one year didn’t get as much use as they probably would have hoped.

But while we were at one with nature as children, that doesn’t really set us apart from generations before. So what makes people my age so fortunate? The fact that as we were growing up, so was the technology around us. When I was a kid there was only one mobile phone in the house. A Nokia of some sort (of course). My dad had a computer in his office when I was about four years old, but it was a little bit later that we got our first computer in our home. It was all rather foreign to me, although I remember having a ton of floppy disks that went with it. It didn’t even have Paint, but the day I discovered that on a friend’s computer was one to remember.

So as I matured, so did the technology around me. We got a PC that had these great games on it – solitaire, hearts, minesweeper, free cell, and best of all: Space Cadet, the 3D pinball game. I remember mum getting a flash new phone – a Motorola grey screen that had a blue back light. My brother got a Nokia 2280, which was sick because not only did it have a new and improved version of Snake, but you could also play this insane motorcycle game. The best part about a new phone was definitely listening to the different ringtones and then picking your favourite. And man, when you upgraded to a phone that could have a song as a ringtone – that was a sure sign you’d made it.

Can anyone else tell that I’m getting a bit nostalgic here? Okay, I’ll get to the point…

Because I’ve grown up with technology, using these devices has all come rather naturally to me. While my mum is willing to pull out instruction manuals and read through them to make sure she gets it right, I’ll just grab the device and start playing around, figuring out anything I don’t know through trial and error. So where my generation is fortunate, is that we have an appreciation for technology, rather than distain for it (like older generations might do), or taking it for granted (like more recent and future generations are likely to). With that, we also use social media with no worries, but if it were all to disappear, we would actually be able to contact and interact with our friends the old fashioned way.

So in a long-winded way I’ve finally made it to the reason I decided to write this blog (although it has been a lovely trip down memory lane). The other day I was looking for an old photo I’d posted on Instagram, and I ended up just scrolling through my previous posts reminiscing about different events or places that I’ve been to. It might sound a little sad, but it got me to thinking how grateful I am that we have these social media outlets to record such things on.

Let’s be honest, social media gets a bad rap. There is an awful lot of negativity that goes around, with many people sitting behind a screen getting some sort of weird pleasure out of insulting other people. (I don’t know why people need to insult others, but at least when I was a kid they just said it to my face). Rumours fly around social media faster than they do in a small town, and things are certainly blown out of proportion incredibly easily. But I like to see myself as an optimist, and I have found some huge positives in these platforms that seem to consume our everyday lives.

As someone who lives overseas, away from family and with numerous friends in a variety of countries, social media is obviously a great way to stay in touch. It’s unbelievably easy to speak to people, and it’s a great way to be able to see what your friends are up to, and which new place they might be visiting. All of these things are obvious, and they all come up in conversation when someone says to me “but do you miss home?”. However I hadn’t realised the value in having some priceless memories immortalised on these platforms. Facebook and Instagram especially have become like virtual photo albums, at least for me. Don’t get me wrong, I see the value in actual physical photos, and in fact I have about 100 of my favourites from the last few years that move around with me, and one small album for the extra special ones. But what really stood out to me was the fact that with these social media platforms, we can not only show what we’re seeing, but express how we’re feeling at that particular time. You all clearly know I like words and I like to string them together the best way I know how, and so going through my old Instagram posts, the photos reminded me of the places I’d been or the people I was with, but the words that I wrote under those photos took me back to how I was feeling in that moment, as if it had happened yesterday. And as someone who is afraid of forgetting about these special moments, that holds incredible value to me.

As a teenager my parents would often say that my phone was glued to my hand because I was always texting my friends, and there’s probably people out there who see my Facebook or Instagram posts and think that I post too often. Actually on more than one occasion I’ve had a friend call me out for “spamming” their newsfeed. But you know what, I’m no longer going to apologise for sharing these parts of my life online. I don’t do it to show off, and I don’t update my feelings and my movements on a daily basis – when it comes down to it, I do it for me. And at least I know that if my material possessions get stolen, lost on a flight, or burned in a house fire (dramatic, I know), I will have a few of my favourite memories immortalised on the good old internet.

“What happens on social media stays on google forever” – Unknown.

That’s all for now,

Jordyn x