A partial list of "Cultural Touchstones" for incoming college freshmen. These are references to things show some of the context of the college student today.
- Ringo Starr has always been clean and sober
- The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union
- Disposable contact lenses have always been available
- Professional athletes have always competed in the Olympics
- There has always been only one Germany
- A coffee has always taken longer to make than a milkshake
- Smoking has never been permitted on U.S. airlines
- DNA fingerprinting has always been admissible evidence in court
- They grew up with and have outgrown faxing as a means of communication
- Bar codes have always been on everything, from library cards and snail mail to retail items
- Reality shows have always been on television
- Being techno-savvy has always been inversely proportional to age
- They have always been able to watch wars and revolutions live on television
- Acura, Lexus, and Infiniti have always been luxury cars of choice
- Television stations have never concluded the broadcast day with the national anthem
- My calculator was a couple of sticks with marks on them.
- The telephone was attached to the wall by a cable, weighed 3 or 4 pounds and had to be provided by the telephone company.
- The school computer was an entire floor of a building and they gave tours of it to schoolkids
The 15 Biggest Cultural Touchstones for the Class of 2010
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