On an average day, you are likely to find yourself in front of your laptop or PC, plugged into your i-Pods or Creative Zen, occasionally glancing over and picking up your cell phone for text messages and such. This may be a picture of daily occurrence for you but it still makes a handful of people go, “I never got to do things like that when I was your age!” Sure you’ve heard it all before, how lucky you are to be growing in this era and all that but to understand exactly what they’re ranting about, here are some of the things ‘they’ never got to do even as recently as the past five to ten years.

For starters, we love the cell phone. No questions about that. But other than the idea of a mobile telephone, Short Message Service is the greatest thing it came along with! It totally changes the way we arrange our plans with others. Before this godsend of an invention, you agree on a time and place to meet before you leave your home, and you had to turn up on time. People generally made a lot more effort to be punctual for their appointments. You don’t need technology to know that having to wait cluelessly is not fun. Now, all you have to do is send a text message to explain whatever reasons (read: excuses) you have for running late. You don’t even have to listen to your friend’s reaction (which will add on to your guilt) on the other line!

There was a time when ‘hip’ kids were identified by say, those who know and maybe know the lyrics to the latest songs on radio. The radio unfortunately has lost its hip factor with the arrival of the internet. (And it has nothing to do with the fact that lyrics are Google-able.) You don’t have to wait for the stations to pick up a song to know about and listen to and Fegie’s or Beyonce’s new single. Heck, you can even choose not to listen to ‘that kind of music’. The concept of discovering music online has allow music fans to be more exposed to genres and artistes they won’t normally get to listen on regular radio stations, they don’t dictate the music and bands you listen to anymore. That’s why you have Saosin and Copeland on your playlist, right?

Of course we can’t speak about the ‘wonders of the internet’ without mentioning how blogging (along with Friendster and MySpace) has unleashed the narcissist in us. But if any good is to come out of that, it actually provides instant updates about the people we care about. Or those we’re just… curious about. We may be too busy to meet up with selected friends (or people we can’t possibly meet without a plane ride) but reading their blogs or a peak their profile pages can keep you up-to-date with what’s been going on with their lives. And when you do get to meet up or bump into them, there’s no need for the routine “So what have you been up to?” to catch up. Instead you can dive straight into “Hey I heard you are [insert info you read on his/ her blog]?”