We used to be outside people. When I was a child, everyone in our neighborhood, and almost everywhere else in the country, was out playing on the streets. It was the norm, and if you weren’t out there, you were the odd one. After school, everyone would rush out and join the others.
We played football (the real one, not the American), hopscotch, and lots of other games. We skated, rode our bicycles, and went on swings, slides, and see-saws. We had the most fun.
Then the computers came. We got PCs and game consoles, and to be honest, we were resistant to them at first. I remember that for the first few months, or years, we still played a lot in the streets, having fun and making memories. But we got more and more interested in the computers. Sadly, we all ended up stuck at home, staring at monitors and wasting our childhood.
I love computers. They still fascinate me, and I can’t live without them, not because I need them but because I love them. But I wish I had a childhood with fewer computers and more playing in the streets. I wish they had come later, not sooner.
My closest and oldest friends are from the time when there were no computers in our homes and nobody was online. We actually went to our friends’ homes and asked their parents if our friends could come out and play with us.
We were bike-buddies, skate-buddies, and football teammates. We were a neighborhood watch and a bunch of cool badasses protecting each other. We helped with anything we could and had each other’s backs when needed.
I miss those times.