It recently occurred to me that the icon of a phone is of a type of phone that almost nobody uses anymore. And the icon of a camping site uses a model of tent that nobody uses anymore either.

Our kids will be so confused...

Similarly, to access music on my iPhone, I click an image of an iPod.

Another anecdote: I heard on some NPR show that most kids don't understand what the sound of a record being scratched to a halt actually is. (This sound: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn6s1FE-yKQ) When asked, they describe it as the noise that is made on TV when you do a double-take.

TIL I guess.

And since I don't qualify as a kid, I am guessing that most mid-twenties wouldn't know either.

I think vinyl was still sufficiently popular for most folks in their mid-twenties to recognize it. I'm 25, and several of my grade school classrooms had record players, not to mention all the homes of my parents, their friends, and our extended family.

But as far as I can tell, few folks born in the mid-80s had significant direct experience with records, to the point where there were cultural references to our ignorance. In particular, I remember a sunday morning comic strip when I was young that centered around kids not being able to identify a record player. We were right on the cusp of its obsolescence.

To wit, I couldn't tell you the difference between a 33 and a 45 (well, it's rpm, but are they different sizes?), and I've never owned music on vinyl.

I'd wager that people born in the 90s would be the first to be completely unaware of the origins of the record scratching sound.

It might have been in the US but although my parents sometimes played records I don't think I have ever heard that sound.

The icon of the dialer on my Android phone is that kind of phone.

Though it might make sense in that case as it is what it replaces.

Apple got it right with Lion - why bother with Save icons at all? We’ve got enough space now to autosave nearly everything.

as long as the convention is universally understood, it serves the required purpose.

also, imagine the amazement on your kid's (or grand kid's) face when you explain to them the "origin" of the save icon and how it represents a floppy disk which could contain a full 1.44 Mb of data.

When I was a kid, for years I thought the paint-bucket icon for "fill" in paint programs was a graduation cap. After all, it was diamond-shaped and seemed to have a little tassel at the end. It confused me to no end why MacPaint would use that as a 'fill' symbol.

What would be a good replacement? A little cloud perhaps? :-) Or somebody engraving something on a stone tablet (timeless)?

I use an arrow pointing down to a 2D HD icon. Perhaps not the best imagery, but I guess I feel like I can afford to buck tradition.

In a way, that's only postponing the same result as the floppy disk icon.

All too true.

And how many non-geeky users know what a hard drive looks like?

Its an inverted floppy disk by the way :) So its not even correct