10 Nerdtastic Things Our Kids Already/Will Take For Granted

More than ever, we're living in the future. In celebration of that fact, we've put together a list of ten things that we, as parents, would have been in love with as kids that is now stuff our own children will or already do take for granted. Some of these have been around for a while, but we feel they still warrant mentioning, others are still relatively recent developments, and we're leaving things off the list that we hope kids born in the last 3-5 years will end up taking for granted, such as open source technology, a lack of DRM to hobble their technological experiences and other such goodies that are still somewhat in the realm of fantasy as far as everyday use is concerned, but are tantalizingly close to becoming the de facto reality.

Enough with the pillow talk - let's do this.

1) Hi-Def Video: Remember the days when we'd sit around on a lazy Sunday afternoon watching grainy movies over the UHF frequencies? If you're 30 or older, odds are you blew at least a few days of your life watching Laurel and Hardy re-runs or Kung Fu Theater. Some of you may have even had to wiggle the old rabbit ears on your TV, just to get Jackie Chan's Drunken Master into some semblance of focus. Not our kids. Gone are the days when wrapping an antenna in aluminum foil was the high tech hack for a better picture. From now on, kids are going to expect crystal clear pictures from their entertainment, and "artifacting" will be the "snow" of the future.

2) On Demand/Streaming/Internet Video: Kind of the sister tech to the first item on our list, but still worth mentioning on it's own. The fact that kids can now watch virtually any cartoon, any time of day has made "Sorry, that's not on now" become the most blatant parental lie while at the same time cementing "Because I said so" in yet another generation's lexicon. Sorry, guys, but it's a proven mathematical fact that adults can only physically handle hearing 32.56% as much SpongeBob in a 24 hour period as kids before they lose their crap.

3) Video Phones: Sure, we knew what a video phone was when we were growing up - we did have The Jetsons, after all! However, today's kids actually have video conferencing on their computers, and in a few more years, I'll be willing to bet it'll be on their cel phones too. My not-quite-3 year old daughter is already so used to it that she pretty much refuses to speak to her grandmother over the phone, insisting that all conversations have to take place in front of the iMac. After all, what's a chat with the grandparents if you can't see their dogs and cats at the same time?

4) Digital Music: Oh, how well I remember the days when you could utter the letter/number combo "mp3" and sound like a genius when you then unfolded the near magical explanation for what it meant to an audience at a party. And who could forget those early, heady days of Napster, Limewire and all the rest of the free music sharing services? Music was free, love was in the air and we were all dirty, digital hippies. All too soon, digital music went stale and corporate, and the rush of finding your favorite artist's entire catalog online became as easy as going to iTunes or Amazon, killing the thrill of the hunt completely. Our kids will never know the thrill of having to actually hunt online for the songs they're looking for, because it's all just a few mouseclicks away...legally or otherwise. See also: Comic Books.

5) Video Games: This one's a bit iffy, since even as adults, we've had video games long enough to pretty much take them for granted. We're still including them on the list, though, because many of us still remember the wonder and awe of playing Super Mario Brothers for the first time, or for some of us, getting that first Atari 2600. Some of my favorite childhood gaming memories include the simple joy of impaling a smurf on the stalagmites over and over and over again on our Colecovision...those were the days. The modern kid, on the other hand, has been raised in a world where owning a console or handheld gaming system is so ubiquitous that the magic is pretty much non-existent.

6) Robots: While Roombahs aren't quite at the chicken-in-every-pot level of popularity yet, they, and other robots, are on the fast track to becoming pretty standard household items. Hell, we bought a Robopanda a month and a half back and we take it for granted so much it's never been unpacked and is still sitting in the closet, silently begging to be let out whenever we grab our jackets. Also, we're including robots here so they remember how we spoke of them so highly, and they won't destroy us when they take over on August 29.

7) The Internet: What list would be complete without the most important technological innovation of our lifetime? Information about everything in the known universe at the push of a few buttons. True, 90% of that information is either false, misleading, snarky, or Viagra spam, but "the world at your fingertips" was once a metaphorical phrase. No longer.

8) TV/Movies/Video Games In The Car:In the last half decade or so, TVs in the family minivan have become almost as standard as automatic transmissions and air conditioning. So much so that I wonder if Cracker Barrel has noticed a marked decrease in the number of golf tee puzzle sales during that same stretch. There's just not as much call for wooden triangle logic games when they have to compete for attention in the back seat with cartoons and, in some cases, the PS2 that dad's hooked up to play at the next rest stop.

9) Texting: Already, pen and paper mainstays of our youth such as passing notes in class, cheating on tests and even knowing how to properly spell words (Oh RLY?) have become passé thanks to the modern miracle of texting. It won't be long before other childhood staples that involved physical components are usurped by this technology, though we remain unconvinced that any digital version of the good old Cootie Catcher will be nearly as satisfying as the oragami-esque original. Odds are, it'll be available as an iPhone App soon enough...if it isn't already.

10) GPS: In a few more years, all the cel phones on the market will have long since been GPSed, so kids'll know where the party's at. No more driving around bumfrack Calvert County trying to figure out whose house everyone's gone to or where that house is - just pull up the info on your phone and get directions on the fly. On the flip side, it'll surely make our lives easier when it comes to finding our kids when they still haven't shown up at home by 12AM on a school night.

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