At 25, I may still be quite young in comparison to some, but the world has still changed quite a bit in the last quarter century.
When I was a little kid, Super Nintendo was still the biggest & best in video game consoles. Gameboy and other hand-held consoles didn't exist yet. I'm older than Sonic the Hedgehog.
The internet didn't exist, and thus neither did social media, nor any of the coding languages that make the internet and all its websites work. I started making websites just 8 years after the first web page was written, and started programming in PHP just 9 years after its first stable release.
Home computers were tiny, slow, ugly grey boxes with pitiful hard drive capacities. Windows 2.0 did exist, but most developers still released software for DOS. My family's first computer ran DOS (I knew enough to make my simple Mickey Mouse game start). My family's second computer (a Mac, purchased after the original IBM PC Junior was stolen) was the first colour screen I'd ever seen on a computer. All TV and computer screens were cathode ray tubes (CRT). Plasma TVs were the big thing when I was in 3rd grade, and LCD screen TVs and computer monitors didn't really make a splash on the market until I was in high school.
My first camera was a Polaroid, given to me by my grandparents for Christmas when I was 9. I didn't purchase a digital camera until 11th grade. It cost me over $300 Canadian, boasted 4 mega pixels, and the largest memory card (SD) available was 512MB.
The discman (portable CD player) replaced the walkman (portable casset player) when I was in elementary school. (Portal CD players existed slightly before my time, but they weren't popular yet). MP3 players were introduced, primarily for audiobooks at first, when I was in the 3rd grade. They had 4GB of memory, which is about 2 hours of audio content.
Digital graphics tablets for personal use were still new when I was born. I didn't know anyone who owned one until high school. When I started university, tablet computers were laptops with a touch screen & a swivel joint so that the screen could be used while the laptop was shut. Generally, a stylus was used.
Cell phones have evolved from clunky military equipment, to sleek little flip phones, and eventually into today's smart phones. Kids didn't have cell phones. Heck, teenagers hardly had cell phones! I got my first cell phone in grade 12. It had no internet connection, and I shared minutes with my Mom & sister. PDAs (electronic organizers) were dedicated devices until part way through my high school years. Some kids had pagers.
I got my first music CD for my 6th birthday, but we had to have a family friend burn it onto a casset because no one in my house owned a CD player for 2-3 more years. Mixed music CDs were a popular party favour among preteen girls in my grades 5-7 years. Movies were still sold on VHS when I was in 10th grade, though DVDs had been rising in popularity for a couple of years. We didn't own a DVD player until I was in 10th grade. BluRay was officially released the year I graduated high school.
When I was a kid, animated movies were still largely hand-drawn artwork, and computer animation was just a tool, not a replacement. If you loved a movie in theatres and wanted to own it, you had to wait a year or so before it was available for purchase. The first completely computer-animated film (Toy Story) was released when I was in the 2nd grade.
The mainstream resurgence of 3D film (marked by the release of films like Ghost of the Abyss) started when I was in the 10th grade. The first full-length animated 3D film (The Polar Express) came out when I was in grade 11. It was around this time that bluetooth also became popular.
Personal GPS units started to become available when I was in high school.
Mainstream USB storage devices were new when I was in high school. I bought one the same year I bought my first laptop, in 12th grade. The USB stick was 1.0GB and cost around $40. The laptop had a 40GB hard drive, 512MB RAM, ran a 1.5 GHz processor (single core, of course), had a batter life of about 1.5 hours, and cost over $1,200.
High-bright/High-intensity LEDs (necessary for today's LED Christmas lights, LED flashlights, etc.) were invented when I was in elementary school, and were still quite expensive to purchase when I was in high school. LEDs did not start to replace traditional bulbs in consumer products like flashlights, holiday lights, vehicle lights, etc. until around the time I graduated high school, if not slightly after.
When I was in the 1st grade and learning about currency, Canada had pennies and $2 bills, and bills were made of paper. We now have $2 coins (the "toonie"), no pennies, and plastic bills. When I was in 3rd grade and learning about Canada (Geo-political topics), the territory of Nunavut did not exist.
Freddie Mercury, King Olav V of Norway, Audrey Hepburn, Vincent Price, Tiny Tim, Carl Sagan, Mother Theresa, Princess Diana, Pierre Trudeau, Michael Jackson, and Stompin' Tom Connors have all passed away in my life time.
I remember my family discussing the coronation of King Harald V of Norway.
The Society Space Program dissolved when I was 3. Spacelab was completed when I was 10. Mir's reentry took place when I was 13. The first Mars rover landed after I graduated high school. Man-made objects (Voyager 1 & 2) left our solar system for the first time. Cold fusion was achieved.
When I was born, the Cold War was still happening, the Berlin Wall was still standing, and the USSR still existed.
The Twin Towers fell during my first week of high school.
I was in the 12th grade when Benedict XVI began his papacy.
The Dead Sea Scrolls made available to the public during my life time. The word "McJob" was added to the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary when I was in grade 9.
I am *almost* as old as the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I grew up watching both TNG and Voyager.
Canada's first female Prime Minster (Kim Campbell) took office when I was 5 years old. She was succeeded by Jean Chrétien, whose 10 consecutive years ranks him 5th among Canada's Prime Minsters by total incumbency, and 2nd by uninterpreted incumbency. (1st for uninterrupted incumbency is Sir Wilfrid Laurier.)
Our solar system had 9 planets throughout my public school years. Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet 2 weeks before I started university.
The space shuttle Space Shuttle Columbia was destroyed while re-entering the atmosphere the day before my 15th birthday.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was established when I was in grade 1. Ice Hockey became Canada's official sport the same year. The World Trade Organization (WTO) was established the following year.
The X Prize Foundation was launched when I was 8, and SpaceShipOne won when I was 16.
I have seen so much progress in terms on human rights. The tides were just starting to turn for gay rights in North America when I was 8. Divorce was legalized in Ireland was I was 7. Women have gained the right to serve on the front lines in all branches of the Canadian and American forces in my life time.
I was 8 when Dolly (the sheep), the first mammal cloned from adult cells, was born.
