Growing old in the time of 'lol'

Perhaps I am just getting old but the other day I realised that I don't think I have ever written 'lol' as part of a text, email etc. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong but I really can't remember a time I have ever written 'lol' - apart from here, and the status updates on Facebook and Twitter where I have mentioned that I have not written it in communication to people of course. Perhaps I just have no sense of humour and that the reason I have not written it is because I didn't find anything humorous enough?

Or then again it could be for the fear of getting it wrong, worrying that it may not mean Laugh Out Loud but something perverse or tremendously bad. Too often I have seen people write down abbreviations only to have to retract them as they were inappropriate to the sentence.

This got me thinking that really, when it comes to the new language that seems to have been created on the internet, SMS etc I am horribly out of my depth. You are reading the thoughts of someone who actually had to look up 'LMAO' through Google to fathom out what everyone was talking about. It just seems to me that a brand new language seems to have seeped into the technological community while I was going for long walks or playing Elite Beat Agents on my DS.

I never really thought of myself as old before, I'm 32 this year, but these days I really do find myself saying things like 'I remember when the only games console I could get was a Sinclair ZX81'. We weren't a rich family, not by any stretch of the imagination but we had that ZX81 for many years. I still remember my Mam staying up most of the night to program a game into the ZX81 which was supposed to be like Frogger but turned out to be a few x's running the length of the screen being chased by z's.

At some point we had a Dragon 32 which I have got to say, sparked within me the adoration of the first truly brilliant game I had ever played - Jetset Willy. Where else in those days could you be chased by hoovers and toilets while clearing up after what seemed to be the worlds most psychadelic party! I never completed it of course, I found out many many years later from one of the producers in my office that there was a major bug that prevented the game from being completed. Mind you, considering I could barely get even a quarter of the way through the game that wasn't going to be too much of an issue for me.

I had a Gameboy when I was about 15 (still have it somewhere - only had two games for it though). And then nothing. For years. I didn't have a games console or anything even close to that until a few years ago when I bought a Nintendo DS. I had a PC and my husband bought me a Nintendo Wii a few years ago but during that time I didn't really play a lot of games. Which may surprise people when they hear that I used to be a games tester. As I said in my interview at the time, I never set out to be a games tester - I love testing software and games had so many interesting facets to test, it was a wonderful opportunity for me. Anyway, I digress...

On my way to the doctors last week I heard a group of teenagers on the bus discussing their phones and iPods and it really made me think how far we have come in terms of entertainment. I had a battered Sony Walkman for most of my teenage years and adulthood, it took a lot of coaxing from one of my friends to even get me to look at an MP3 player when they finally arrived. I resisted CD's for a long time as I thought that they weren't as good as cassette tapes. I mean, for crying out loud - I have a Betamax video and about 40 tapes, I remember when the only face cream I could get in my town was Oil of Ulay (and for any young person reading this - nope, that's not a misprint) and I remember when you could go out and leave your door open...

Yep, I think that successfully concludes that I am getting old, in one sentence. I marvel at the rudeness of people on the TV - I remember when the Weakest Link was shocking in terms of insults and I remember when I first saw the Jerry Springer Show and was aghast that someone had cheated on their partner with five other people. I remember when the internet didn't exist, when I had never heard of wikipedia and twittering was something done by the birdies in the trees.

Not that I want to go back in time, goodness no, there are so many wonderful things on this planet that make life so much better. Watching my husband and his brother playing Left 4 Dead on the XBox and listen to my husband telling his brother not to keep running off in the game, only for him to do the same and almost fall off a ledge. Getting massive cramp in my wrist attempting to finish 'Sweet Home Alabama' on Guitar Hero on the Nintendo DS. Listening to 'Don't Stop Believing' by Journey on an MP3 player the size of a match box.

I may be old but the excitement from all the new technology we have now gosh darn it just makes me feel so young again.