ContentAwareness

If You Instantly Know What This Is, You’re Smarter Than Most 30-Year-Olds Today

Jul 13, 2025

Written by: [Michael C]
© [2025] All rights reserved.

If You Instantly Know What This Is, You’re Smarter Than Most 30-Year-Olds Today

🧠 I. The Test Begins… Now

Look at this sentence:

“Blow into it. Not too hard. Try again. Now it should work.”

If you already know what object we’re talking about…
you just passed the unofficial intelligence check that most people under 30 would completely fail.

Not because they’re not smart —
but because they never had to know.

🎮 II. The Forgotten Genius of Everyday ’80s & ’90s Logic

You weren’t just a kid playing video games.
You were a technician.

You knew:

  • How to seat a cartridge just right
  • How to adjust tracking on the VCR
  • How to time recording off live TV
  • How to route cables between TV, console, and antenna without instructions

All without Google.
All without YouTube.
All from memory.

That wasn’t just fun — that was cognitive development in real time.

📺 III. The “Smarter” Part Has Nothing to Do With IQ

Here’s what you were actually building:

  • Spatial awareness from plugging in cords
  • Problem-solving when games glitched
  • Memory retention (where's that setting again?)
  • Adaptive thinking (wiggle it, blow in it, reload, restart)

Today, most people never experience manual troubleshooting.
Everything is touchscreen. Locked. Pre-set. Sealed.

But if you were the kid behind the TV with a flashlight in your mouth trying to find “Video 1”…
you earned your stripes.

🧬 IV. Studies Back It Up

Psychologists now recognize that analog interaction — especially with tech — develops parts of the brain related to:

  • Executive function
  • Motor memory
  • Non-linear problem-solving

Kids who grew up with tactile, imperfect tools had to think differently.

They had to interact with tech — not just consume it.

That’s why recognizing something as simple as a game cartridge or a rewind button is more than nostalgia…

It’s a sign that your brain grew up solving problems instead of swiping past them.

🕹️ V. So… What Was It?

Yep.
That opening sentence?

“Blow into it. Not too hard. Try again. Now it should work.”

It was about the Nintendo cartridge.

If you knew —
you probably also know how to rewind a tape with a pencil, dial a phone without looking, or set a microwave without needing a clock app.

And that makes you part of a very rare, very clever generation.

🕯 Final Reflection

You didn’t grow up with answers in your pocket.
You had to figure it out.

And even though that era is gone,
you still carry the mental agility it gave you.

So next time someone asks why you remember so much random stuff —
why your instincts feel sharper, faster, and just a little more hands-on than the average person?

You can tell them:

“Because I earned it — one cartridge at a time.”

Written by: [Michael C]
© [2025] All rights reserved.

Michael C