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"You know, when I was your age, we played with real Barbies," I tell the young girl sitting at the computer. She giggles and clicks the virtual Barbie on her screen, instantly changing her hair from curly blonde to straight with pink highlights.

Going over to the neighbors' home to baby-sit lately feels more like a trip to Best Buy.

As soon as she gets home from school, 10-year-old Katie logs into her Webkinz account or Barbie beauty shop game and starts playing with her cyber toys. Meanwhile, 12-year-old Robbie plays an Xbox that's hooked up to the Internet, competing with kids down the street without ever seeing them in person.

For today's children, the Internet represents not just the future, but the present. For these "Millennials," the Internet serves as an educational tool, a link to the adult world and a virtual playground.

And it's a constant reminder to me of just how unique my own childhood now seems.

Back in my day -- I sound like my grandmother and I'm only 22 -- I built forts in the woods with sticks and moldy patio furniture. I played flashlight tag at night and watched Nickelodeon at slumber parties.

When I wanted to play with a friend, I had to knock on that friend's door. When I wanted to play stuffed animals or Barbies, I did so with -- heavens above! -- stuffed animals and Barbies.

I'll never forget writing papers in middle school without the Internet. My language arts teacher would take us all to the school library, where we would sit at long tables with piles of books spread in front of us and take notes on index cards. Then we drafted our papers, by hand, on notebook paper.

My peers and I, college students who now live a life of constant online activity, might be the last generation of humans to remember a time without the Internet. But because we remember a time without it, we are in the position of knowing not just how to use it, but how to appreciate it.

We might live and breathe Facebook, Twitter and MySpace now, but don't be fooled -- we remember our pre-Internet childhoods. Growing up without the Internet instilled in us a rare kind of character.

We did not grow up surrounded by the online instant-gratification culture. We remember having to wait for things, having to work for them -- like the cornflakes special prize for which you mailed off cereal box tops and waited week after week.

We had to make our own fun. We didn't get to choose from thousands of sites with games to play.

"Make-believe" meant turning paper towel rolls into swords and couches into castles. It didn't mean pretending animals on a computer screen were real.

Letters from my pen pal in another school across the world had actual stamps on them. I spent Christmas Eve staring up at the sky looking for Santa Claus's sleigh, not tracking it online at NORADSanta.org.

My generation was raised in a world where you touched things, smelled them, held them. Screens were for TV, not for play. We had crayons, action figures, Matchbox cars and junk from the recycling bin -- and that was all we needed.

It's not that there's anything wrong with the Internet. It's just that seeing elementary school children "play" on YouTube makes me feel old. Old and somehow special -- one of a dying breed.

Contact Alyse Knorr at alyse.knorr@news-record.com