Wendyl Nissen: Blast from the past

Fax machines used to hum all over offices and homes. Photo / Supplied

I bought a fax machine this week.

I vaguely remembered having one in the 80s and sending my stories off to editors page by page, miraculously through the phone line.

It was plugged in, switched on and tested. All that remained was to teach the rest of the family what to do if a fax came through.

My husband and daughter were assembled and told to listen.

"So you hear the fax noise and you walk into the office and you press the start key and wait for the fax to start humming and then you hang up."

"Just like the old days," said my husband full of nostalgia.

Our daughter was unusually silent.

"Did you hear me, do you know what to do?" I prompted.

She stared at the fax machine long and hard before looking at me, clearly confused.

"I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about."

At 12 she has never heard the high-pitched wail of a fax down the phone line. Nor could she understand why we would want to.

"Why can't they just email?" she said with youthful logic.

We have a new client; they are delightfully old-fashioned and like to fax things. We like our new client a lot, so we bought a fax machine.

"You guys are just weird," she muttered as she wandered off to plant herself in front of the computer and her Facebook friends.

Increasingly, the habits that we have had since childhood are being seen as "just weird" by our daughter.

A while ago we decided it would be a good idea to turn off the television occasionally and have "Monday night reading night!" For months we sat around studiously reading books on the highest-rating night of television.

Then one night the adults in the house had a disagreement about "Monday night reading night!"

"I've been writing all day, I can't look at another word, I just need to watch television," was my complaint.

"But it's reading night. We have to be an example to our daughter, to show her that it's possible to do something else than watch a screen for the sake of watching a screen."

I looked around the lounge. It was empty.

"She doesn't watch television any more. I think she got the message."

We both stared at each other in stunned silence.

Our daughter had joined our older children and become the generation that appointment-views if she goes near the television, using MySky, and mostly downloads and views her entertainment on the computer. "There's a really funny Family Guy episode on the computer if you want to watch it," she said, interrupting our discussion.

"And while you're there," she continued, "have a look at the lame 50 Years Of Television promo."

Someone had posted it online for those who no longer watch television.

"You'd think they could work out how to do a decent promo after 50 years!" she said.

Not only does my daughter not watch television, she is a savvy and opinionated viewer of the networks' promotional material.

I was feeling quite nostalgic about it all.

At 47 I've never known life without a television and my life was largely shaped by the programmes I watched devotedly, from Sesame Street through to Dallas.

I spent most of my childhood huddled with my family around the box, bonding over comedies and dramas, but I have recently joined my children on the appointment viewing schedule.

With MySky I never watch ads, I simply tape Coronation Street, sit down to watch it at 7.50pm, instead of 7.30pm, and fast forward through all the advertisements.

Which means when I'm stuck somewhere with normal television viewing and only three channels I can't bear it.

"How do people watch this stuff?" I asked my husband when we were away one weekend in the rain with only three channels and half of the programming taken up with advertising.

"Sssh, I like this ad," was all he said. He's 53 and some old habits never die.