Diary of a Gen Z Student: I can't get my head around the archaic circumstances of college in the 80s

No technology? No student night in Dicey’s every Tuesday? No flat whites with oat milk?

Jane Cowan: I thank God every day that I was born in 2004, not 1964. Picture: Barry Cronin

I recently saw this photo of my mother when she was in college. It had been taken on a disposable film camera. She’s walking through a forest in some foreign country. It has a bit of a reddish tint. No phone in her hand. She probably only called home once or twice to let people know that she was alive. It seems so far from today. 

Looking at this photo made me laugh a little. I use a disposable film camera now and again. Because they’re ‘vintage’ and kind of cool. There’s something exciting about taking a picture, and not knowing how it will turn out, until you get it developed a few weeks later. My phone takes higher quality photos, but for some reason these disposable cameras have become trendy again. They feel a bit like a historical artefact. It’s fun, trying to emulate the past.