Tamagotchi

So, the other day I was chatting to friends on Facebook, whilst simultaneously watching a show I’d recorded on the Sky+. In the meantime, I’ve got my MP3 player hooked up to the PC, my mobile phone charging, and my PS3 updating after the latest Sony security disaster (well, not latest now, latest then, but you get the point). And then, suddenly, I had a realisation:

I’ve got to get off the PC, switch off the PS3 and try and get a job.

Seriously, though, I did think about how much things have changed, in terms of technology, over the last few years. I’m only 23, yet it feels like so much has happened in recent times.

When growing up, if I wanted to speak to friends, it would be by seeing them in school, ringing up their house, or the good old fashioned “Is (insert name) coming out?” If I missed a TV show, and we hadn’t videoed it, then it was tough. If you were lucky, someone would tell you what happened. My PC, which seemed advanced at the time, had little besides Word, Excel and Encarta (Wikipedia, but with far less subjects), whilst my Nintendo 64 seemed like the greatest invention ever. And for music, my cassette Walkman was the only portable device available, and even that only came into use on the coach trips to and from Butlin’s (during which the headphones would always break, and/or the batteries would run out).

But now? I can chat to any friends online for free on Facebook, Twitter, e-mail etc, or for close friends, by texting them on my phone. Doesn’t matter whether they’re busy; they’ll receive a message instantly, and usually reply within good time. If I miss a show now, I can record it and watch anytime on Sky+, or even watch it online via BBC iPlayer, ITV Player or 4OD (I’ve never got to grips with Sky Player, which is why I left that out). My PC now has tons of memory and allows me to check e-mails, play games, watch videos, save thousands of tunes; there’s so much you can do. As for my PS3, I can play games, buy games, download films, import songs for use in games, play FIFA with someone who lives nearer to Paddington Bear than me, the aforementioned TV on demand services and loads of other stuff. And music? My MP3 Player currently has over 1,200 songs on it, and barely a fraction of its 20 GB memory has been taken up.

It may seem like I’m just rambling and reliving 1998 (which, in fairness, I am), but there is a point to this. That day, I was frustrated that my Facebook was playing up; that the recorded show had left me with low memory on the Sky+ Planner; that my MP3 player was being undetected by my PC; that my mobile phone had virtually died on me because the battery was that low; and that the time the PS3 was taking to update was . . . well, by PS3 standards, I suppose two hours isn’t that bad. So, I wasn’t a very happy bunny.

But, by remembering what we didn’t have years ago, and how much we can do nowadays, I realised that my problems weren’t so important. In fact, I was grateful. Okay, so it took hours for everything to work; but when you consider that a tamagotchi was the must-have gadget at one time in the not-too-recent past (I never did get one, although I did want it, for no reason other than to look “cool”), a 90-minute wait to listen to Tinie Tempah again was nothing.

So, next time you’re annoyed because you lost your online connection in the last minute of a footie game on the PS3, or because only one episode of Deal Or No Deal was recorded on the Sky+ instead of two, just remember that 15 years ago, the thought of a device with such capabilities was not even a dream; it was unimaginable. And no doubt, in years to come, we’ll be doing more things that are currently not in the realms of possibility. So, be grateful for what we have, take full advantage of the services on offer, and when there are problems, just think back to the time when a kid’s main ambition in life was to own a tamagotchi.