The following is an email I got from my mom. Being over 40 I can certainly empathise:

  Growing up without a cellphone.

 When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious
  diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with
  walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill...
  Barefoot...
  BOTH ways...yadda, yadda, yadda
 
  And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in
  hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how
  hard
  I had it and how easy they've got it
 
  But now that I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look
  around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean,
  compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say
  it,
  but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!
 
  1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to
  know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves,
  in the card catalog!!
 
 
  2) There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter -
  with
  a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in
  the
  mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10
  cents!
 
  3) Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a
  matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick
  our butts! Nowhere was safe!
 
  4) There were no MP3s or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal
  music,
  you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!
 
  5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ
  would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no
  CD
  players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and
  "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it
  useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?
 
  6) We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone
  and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!
 
  7) There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house,
  you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be
  out
  of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!! Think of the horror... not
  being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah,
  right.
  Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.
 
  8) And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you
  had
  no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss,
  your
  bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!!
  You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
 
  9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with
  high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like
  'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square!
  You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple
  levels or screens, it was just one screen. Forever! And you could never
  win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster
  until you died! Just like LIFE!
 
  10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was
  on!
  You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your
  ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh,
  no, what's the world coming to?!?!
 
  11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on
  Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK
  for
  cartoons, you spoiled little rats!
 
  12) And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we
  had to use the stove! Imagine that!
 
  13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long.
  Oh,
  no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside...
  you were doing chores!
 
  14) And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you
  hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at
  the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the
  dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first
  place!
 
 
  See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got
  it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five
  minutes back in 1970 or any time before!
  
  Regards,
 
  The Over 40 Crowd