Gen X had to figure out a lot of weird little skills just to survive everyday life—not in a wilderness way, more like, “How do I watch Seinfeld if I’m not home at 8?” But Gen Z will never even see most of these problems, let alone deal with them, so they have no idea about any of them. Here are fourteen skills Gen X had down cold, but no one really needs now. It’s a real shame, honestly.
Featured Image Credit: ArturVerkhovetskiy/Depositphotos.com.
Tuning a Guitar by Ear with No Digital Help
If you played guitar in the ‘80s or ‘90s, you had to know what an A sounded like because you couldn’t just twist the peg & hope for the best. Instead, you’d use a pitch pipe or someone’s old upright piano, then match the rest of the strings off that, as there were no screens to tell you anything. You developed your ear, or you sounded off—Gen Z, however, has phone tuners that do it for them, and most of them don’t even think about trying to tune their instruments by ear.
Cleaning a Mouse with a Cotton Swab
Computer mice used to have little rubber balls underneath, which would collect mystery crumbs & lint until the cursor moved like crazy, so you had to clean them regularly. You’d open it up, scrub the rollers with a cotton swab, then pop it back in and hope for the best—but modern mice run far more smoothly. There’s no need for opening them up anymore because they usually use lasers, rather than anything physical.
Typing Full Documents with Just the Keyboard
In the days before computer mice, you couldn’t click around as there was no mouse or trackpad, nothing—if you wanted to move text or change formatting in WordPerfect, you had to know the shortcuts, like F4 or Shift-F7. Some people kept a cheat sheet taped to the monitor just to remember how to bold or center the text. But today, everyone taps & drags through a UI, and nobody’s learning keyboard-only formatting anymore because it’s just not necessary. In fact, AI can just write everything for you these days.
Pulling Off a Three-Way Call
You couldn’t just figure out how to do a three-way call on the fly, and you had to practice it—call person A, flash the switch hook, get a dial tone, call person B, hit the hook again & pray it all stuck. Messing up just one part meant you either dropped a call or received a busy signal. But now it’s just a button, and Gen Z doesn’t need to know anything about the phone gymnastics previous generations went through to make a group call work.
Getting the TV Picture Right
Anytime that the screen went wavy, you didn’t call anyone, but simply crouched down and messed with knobs labeled “vertical hold” or “tint” that were hidden behind the little front panel. You had to know which one did what, and half the time, there were no instructions—it was just a case of trial & error. Yet Gen Z remotes come with presets and sliders, with no hands-on adjustment needed, and some remotes feature voice controls instead.
Trimming Printed Photos to Fit a Frame
Since photos were all physical, if they didn’t fit in the frame, you had to line them up on the back, mark your cut with a pencil, and then go slowly with the scissors, as there were no second chances if you messed up. People became good at eyeballing it and knowing how to cut evenly by hand, although these days, you simply drag a corner and it’s done. Gen Z doesn’t even need scissors for this stuff because they can just tap a screen to do it, or simply ask AI to finish the task for them.
Spelling Words Right
You either knew how to spell it or you didn’t, because there was no autocorrect to fix your mistakes before you even finished typing. Instead, you trained through spelling bees & memory drills, which taught you about things like root words and weird exceptions just to avoid mistakes. There was nothing else to rely on to make sure you had spelled the words correctly, barring perhaps a dictionary or two.
Taking Notes Using Shorthand Symbols
Speaking of writing, the shorthand writing system was one that you had to memorize pages of and practice until you could listen & write at the same time. Many office jobs even expected you to know it, although Gen Z just records the meeting or gets a transcript emailed later, without the need to remember anything. But in the past, people spent weeks learning how to keep up during lectures without falling behind.
Figuring Out Sales Tax and Tips in Your Head
Since there were no phones or easy-to-carry calculators, you had to do any and all calculations in your brain. You’d be in line doing quick percentage breakdowns while holding a wallet & maybe juggling a kid—going to restaurants meant knowing how to get from subtotal to 15% without pulling out paper. People got good at rounding and estimating fast, while Gen Z just taps a tip option and moves without even thinking about numbers.
Programming a VCR to Record a TV Show
You couldn’t just ask the TV to save a show for later, but rather, you had to punch in the right channel & time using buttons. Mess it up? Too bad—hope you like infomercials about blenders because that’s what was recorded. However, Gen Z can binge an entire season in one afternoon with no need for a setup, and any downloads simply require a tap of the screen.
Recording Songs Off the Radio
Recording songs off the radio involved a lot of good timing, and you’d sit there with the boombox, ready to pounce the second your favorite track came on—no blinking, no talking. Even though you hit “record” the moment it started, half the time, the DJ would talk right over the intro like it was his job to ruin your mix. But in reality, it didn’t matter because that fuzzy, cut-off version became your soundtrack for the month. It’s quite different from today, where Gen Z can just download a song immediately or simply stream it.
Setting the TV to Channel 3 to Use the Game Console
There was no such thing as plug-and-play with Gen X game consoles—instead, you had to switch the TV to channel 3 and mess with a weird plastic box behind the set. Sometimes you got a picture but no sound, then other times it buzzed. And if someone dared walk by and nudge the cable even a little, you’d get a black screen and would be forced to mess around with things all over again. Gen Z doesn’t have these skills because the TV mostly auto-detects when the console is turned on.
Splicing Broken Audio Tape with Clear Adhesive
Tapes broke all the time, but no one threw them out over a little tear, as they’d cut the ends clean with scissors and get a piece of tape small enough not to cover the music strip. Then, they’d line it up without leaving wrinkles, which wasn’t a casual job—one crooked cut and you’d hear a loud ‘click’ every time it passed through. Gen Z has no idea how lucky they have it, as they can simply press play on Apple Music or Spotify.
Installing Software Using 12 Floppy Disks
When you were installing new software, you’d start with disk one, watch it chug along, then wait for the screen to say “Insert Disk Two.” Then you did it again, and again—by disk seven, you were kind of over it, but you kept going, until disk eleven failed. It froze the screen, and that was it because you were back to square one. These days, all you have to do is download a file from the internet to install new software.
Disclaimer: This list is solely the author’s opinion based on research and publicly available information.
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