For instance, if you weren’t alive during the early 90s, how are you supposed to know what the hell that thing next to the “Save” button on every single program in existence is supposed to represent.
My generation knows that the little square icon is supposed to be a 3.5-inch floppy disk – the primary means of backing up files or transferring them between computers from the 1970s through about 10 years ago. But even though these things no longer have a purpose or even exist in the computing world, they’re still the universally recognized symbol for “save your work.”
But it’s not just icons. There are terms that have outlasted the technology they described. Like when TV programs use the phrase “weekly rewind,” my kids never bat an eye because to them, “rewind” just means to look back on something. To review it or play it again. The idea that tape would have to be physically wound around spools to watch something again is foreign to them.
6 Things Our Kids Just Plain Won’t Get