Every year, the kind people at Beloit College remind us boomer faculty that it’s time to update our classroom examples. When I first taught intro psychology, I could use John F. Kennedy’s assassination as my example of “flashbulb memories.” Then it was the Challenger explosion, then 9/11….

Anyway, you can see the whole list at Beloit, but here is their top 10:

  1. The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.
  2. They have known only two presidents.
  3. For most of their lives, major U.S. airlines have been bankrupt.
  4. Manuel Noriega has always been in jail in the U.S.
  5. They have grown up getting lost in “big boxes.”
  6. There has always been only one Germany.
  7. They have never heard anyone actually “ring it up” on a cash register.
  8. They are wireless, yet always connected.
  9. A stained blue dress is as famous to their generation as a third-rate burglary was to their parents’.
  10. Thanks to pervasive headphones in the back seat, parents have always been able to speak freely in the front.