Someone Asks Online "People Born Before 1990, What Trivial Skill Do You Possess That No One Uses Anymore?", Receives 30 Replies

Indeed, almost each generation in recent history has a certain set of habits and skills that they have honed over the years, often associated with everyday things and devices natural for their time. And as soon as this or that object goes down in history, then the skills of using it become unclaimed, moving into the category of "weird habits".

For example, do you know that at one time, about twenty years ago, there were even competitions in speed texting on push-button phones? Winners were determined, hefty prize money was paid, world records were set... and the competitions continue to be held, but now on the virtual keyboards of smartphones. And if you could blindly type a message while holding your phone in your pocket - and this was possible, back when just knowing the order of keystrokes is enough - then today this is nothing more than a funny fad. For example, to amuse your kids, if, while sorting through old things, you somehow find an old Nokia 3310...

"The issue is the mechanism of learning and adaptation, which for most people still remains very high, no matter what anyone says," explains Vladimir Nemertsalov, a school principal and teacher from Ukraine, to whom Bored Panda reached out for a comment here. "Any skill, like the object associated with it, has its own life cycle. First, a certain device appears, then people try to adapt existing skills to it. Sometimes this goes well enough, but most often not."

"And then the culture of using a new device begins to acquire new habits. Someone comes up with hacks to improve it all, make it faster and more convenient to use. This is how skills are formed. And then, when the device 'walks off into the sunset', the ability to use it goes the same way. It's another matter that in the modern world it happens much faster. For example, the skill of riding was incredibly relevant for several millennia, but the ability to use a rotary phone has come to naught in about half a century. But such is the contemporary world, and such is progress," Vladimir says.

Sometimes outdated skills develop into a kind of hobby or even a subculture - as happened, for example, with film photography or vinyl records. Regarding the latter, the level of sales, after three decades of oblivion, began to grow again around 2010, and has now returned to almost 1988 levels. Perhaps this will happen with tapes - and then I will again appear in all my splendor with the skill of rewinding one with a pencil. In the meantime, please feel free to scroll this selection to the very end and maybe add some more obsolete and weird-looking skills from the past... and I'll go practice. Where is my pencil, anyway?