I used to have a clunky portable tape player- a yellow Sony Walkman to be exact. Yes, on my portable Walkman I rocked out to my Ace of Base tape and all of the Dance Mix tapes. 

As the times went on and technology advanced, I was introduced to the portable cd player, the Sony Shockwave- a cd player that you could move around with or even drop, and it would not skip a beat on your cd.

And now, yes, I am hip to the ipod. The ipod is definitely more convenient, that's for sure. There's no fast forwarding or rewinding, There's no switching cd's. It's small and compact, it's great for the gym.

But how would kids today deal with something like an old, clunky Walkman?

The Sony Walkman was launched 30 years ago (can you believe it???) So how does it compare to today's ipods and mp3 players? A magazine did a study with a 13 year old boy who swapped his ipod for a Walkman for a week!

The kid, Scott, said that he couldn't believe how BIG the Walkman was. He said it was the size of a small book! Scott also said that the walkman was clunky (true) and heavy (true... gotta wear a belt so it doesn't bring down your pants!) He said when he wore it around town he got strange looks from people. He also said it took him three days to realize that there was another side to the tape.. I'm feeling pretty ancient right now!

He mentioned that the Walkman had no 'shuffle' like his ipod- nope, we didn't have that! It's so funny to me to see what this kid wrote about tape players and how 'old fashioned' they seemed... I feel like how my parents felt when they would talk about their record player!

Here's how Scott summed up his week with his Sony Walkman:

Negatives- Clunky buttons, door ejects- watch out for flying tapes

Positives- Double headphone jack so two people can listen at the same time, satisfying noise when you press the play button on a Walkman as opposed to the light 'tap' on your ipod.