Not knowing everything all the time led to more interesting conversations.

We could go outside unsupervised.

Cycling to friend's place to see if they're home or spinning around the town checking where the people are hanging out at

It was quite simple and nice not being connected 100% of the time

Not having a camera or tracker up my ass everywhere I went.

Hair metal.

Big concerts with crazy amounts of people and you got a $20 ticket made out of paper that you could save to display in your photo album.

Two sliders in car for heat and air. One for low or fast blowing, one to slide from hot to cold. Why tf do I need a PhD for my AC when I'm trying to drive?

Going outside.

Not having parents and teachers and government bother people constantly about everything. Latch key parents didn't go to jail for neglect, kids grew up with freedom, gov wasn't watching you, and police were not at schools.

Playing video games without the need to sign in, use server, update for a goddamn hour when I only have 45 min to play, and games made for fun rather than cookie cutter eye candy.

Kids got in trouble for tobacco but didn't get criminal charges for it. We also did not get charges for fighting. We got through it. Now parents are in court rooms over stupid normal shit kids do.

People didn't kill each other at schools. Students often had gun racks in the back windows of their vehicles and nobody cared.

It was such a blessing to not have every aspect of your life monetized by shadowy tech billionaires. I see that now. You could simply exist as a person without worry that something or someone would gather the most intimate details of your existence to sell to the highest bidder so they could better psychologically manipulate your purchasing decisions. If you wanted, you could disappear for a while to recharge in solitude - no cellphone cataloging where you are, no cameras generating records of your movements. Friendships were more solid. These were people like you that sought connection whether it was an activity or common experience. There were whole seasons when you were free to roam about and socialize or not, there was no expectation of you being productive every waking moment. It was a time when science and technology felt exciting - the next new discovery or invention would be something that would improve our lives. Computers were simple by todays standards and were centered around what YOU wanted to do with them, not just a conduit to shovel content to consume. It was an exploratory experience and you felt so accomplished when you got the hang of the interface. I can barely recall the feeling of knowing there was a brighter future ahead of you and that there were others in this world who cared and reached for it too.

Fuck, I'm crying as I write this. I'm mourning a world that no longer exists and can't ever again.

The shared experience of Television and Movies.

Nearly everyone watched The Simpsons, for instance. It was more reliable than Game of Thrones ever was.

More truth and fewer media bubbles. The "WMDs in Iraq" lie was a huge understanding, and not everyone believed it, just enough. Now you can do that more easily with some social media accounts and algorithms. People just choose their own news.

Not needing an account to do everything.

You paid at the door, you enjoyed your bowling/concert/etc, you didn't get adverts for the rest of your life.

Things that happened at the party, mostly stayed at the party. Now you can find yourself on TikTok the next morning

Enjoying music concerts without a sea of cell phone screens blocking my view.

The concept of monoculture.

My car, refrigerator, microwave, TV, etc. not having to have updates or a subscriptions.

Not having to be asked my phone number at every single store checkout.

A lack of cameras everywhere. Plenty of dumb things that happened in my childhood now only live in my memory (and maybe those who were there). There's no video proof of a dumb thing I said or did. I was free to make mistakes.

Nowadays, if the phone rings or if someone knocks on the door, it causes fear and anxiety.

When I was a kid, if the house phone rang or there was a knock at the door, we'd rush to answer in excitement. "the cousins are coming over."

simpler times

The idea that I would do something useful with my life

Garage sales! Holy shit garage sales used to be so fucking awesome. As a 12-15 year old I scored so much computer stuff dirt cheap at garage sales, along with books and music. Just about every Saturday in the summer you could see me with a box precariously balanced or a shopping bag hanging from my bike's handlebars.

Nowadays everything worth more than a couple bucks goes up on FB marketplace and Kijiji, and the only stuff anyone puts in a garage sale is actual garbage that the thrift stores wouldn't even put on the shelf.

The ability to disappear, just go out and come home a few hours later with no one, not even my parents have any way to verify my whereabouts during this time.

Play. Actual children's play. I have kids in the house, two sets, one lives with mom most of the time, others live with me. One set has screen limits, the other doesn't. One 10 year old plays with their Legos and one doesn't. Now this could be chalked up to personal differences, but it seems very correlated to me. And I see it clearly when other kids are visiting, less screen time = more creativity and play.

The ability to not be available 24/7 or expected to be. Employers with the advent of cellphones and their ubiquity expect that from you and they can fuck right off.

Limited media. Everyone have only a few good shows or movies to watch and quote lines. Having to watch them over because there wasn't a lot of options. Over abundance can be paralyzing.

Not linked directly to the tech, but generally the thing I miss the most was the optimism. In the 90s people were excited for the future. Crime was trending down, the economy was doing well, the government was paying down the debt, the internet was new and full of wonder. In general there was a push for you to be whatever you wanted to be no matter who you were. The beginning of a lot of breaking down and removing stereotypes and gender norms.

Some of this seems to have reversed, most of it ended on 9/11/2001. That attack killed a lot of the optimism and things line the PATRIOT ACT really put us on the dystopian track we find ourselves on now. Also a lot of the economic boom were from the deregulation that would cause massive problems later...

So, yeah generally I miss the optimism we had.

Greater intentionality in mundane things. Wanted to go somewhere? Mark it on the map. Photos? You only have so much film left. Trying to remember a phone number, address, passcode, note? 9 times out of 10, you'd write it down and carry it with you.

Smartphones are a technological miracle but we lost a lot of intention through the convenience, which has pros and cons.

I miss not experiencing the pressure to be always available. To always respond.

If you were out of the house and someone wanted you they waited until you got home. If it was a true emergency, they could figure out the phone number to wherever you were, maybe, but short of that? You wouldn't be bothered.

There was also a level of spontaneity I miss where you might drive looking for a place to eat and just stop at the first place that looked good. Or you were going somewhere specific but you just drive to the general area and look for a sign.

I delivered pizza using a map of my city and I got real familiar with how roads worked.

You had to make plans in advance and stick to them.

Being left the fuck alone.

Now everyone expects you to respond right away.

Being bored from time to time

Summer holidays as a kid. Endless summer days - and the days were long too (it didn't get dark until 10 at night) - with nothing to do but play with friends. I grew up in rural SW Scotland, so we had woods, forests, beaches, hills, rivers, streams, farmland etc. at our disposal. Our parents were all at work so we had total freedom - as long as we were home in time for dinner we'd be good. Our bikes were everything, we'd meet up and decide what we were going to do and where we were going to go. Sometimes it would be someone's house for video games (Commodore 64 or Spectrum), or building a camp in the woods, or fishing at a stream up in the Galloway Forest, or cycling to the nearest beach and swimming in the warm sea.

Fucking idyllic, but that world is gone.

It can't be overstated how basic tasks or minor inconveniences would turn into multi-day quests.

Tons of movies spin up a whole plot based on a car breaking down and it'll be a week before the part can get there. Or trying to find the one guy that knows about the thing you need to know about, because he has the right book that the library doesnt have. It was an easy way to meet interesting people and learn stuff.

What I don't miss is even looking for a basic thing that's out of stock and calling 7 stores asking "hi, do you have _____ right now? No? OK, thanks." Then calling back the next week.

Privacy.

Hide and go seek tag with all the kids in the neighborhood at dusk.

Knocking on your friends door and asking if they are coming out to play.

I miss being able to make embarrassing mistakes without the risk of it being recorded and shared with the world. It's not even that I make a lot of them, or that anyone would care, I just hate the principle that anything could potentially be used against you. It's more that the threat itself takes the enjoyment out of being outside, like everyone has to be so guarded and fake all the time.

The first time I saw this was in the early days of YouTube and smart phones, some kids had found a video of a teacher who was peer pressured by some people into very shyly singing a popular song, which they put on YouTube. After that nobody took him seriously anymore.

Note: this is for actual small silly things only, the kind that can happen to anyone. I absolutely do not support people who try to excuse their crimes, harassment or bigotry as "it was just an embarrassing mistake when I was young haha", that sort of thing absolutely should be used against them later.

Having face to face conversations with my friends after playing on the streets. Getting bored because there was nothing to do or to watch on TV. Time used to pass real slowly back then. I miss that.

Being a child with relatively little responsibility

Pain free joints.

Honestly very little. I hated the lack of choices for TV/Radio, being forced to watch/listen to what ever the stations decided everyone must. The limited news telling whatever biases the state wanted pushed. The limited social views and lack of represented diversity. For someone who didn't fit in with mainstream society, in a small town with limited options, it was very alienating being forced to conform to the same as everyone else.

I guess if I had to pick one thing I liked, it was going to the video store and renting a game and playing it for a weekend because I didn't have anything else, even if it was a bad game I still got a lot value out of it.

So I liked the limited choices I could make, but I didn't like the decisions made for me.

Being outside until the street lights come on. The neighborhood ice cream truck that came routinely. Aspects of life that weren't mined and extracted for shareholder profit.

My son is about to be 13, doesnt have his own phone, hardly plays video games, and often doesnt watch Tv instead chooses to play outside.

He finally found a kid in the neighborhood who also isnt screen addicted and its so nice to see them play. Shortly after school hours, you see either my son or the other kid start circling on their bike waiting for the other kid to come out. Then they play outdoors for hours. They come home from their neighborhood adventures sometimes covered in mud, with new scrapes and out of breath from running and playing. I love it! I love to hear them laughing and enjoying their time, I love that they are learning social skills, figuring out who they are, while not comparing themselves to what they see on the internet. It's fantastic.

Recently a teacher was taken aback when said he didnt have a phone (he uses mine to text friends) and I scoffed a bit inside with pride. My kid has healthy self esteeme and makes friends everywhere he goes. It brings me a lot of joy to see him thrive in this way, hes begining to learn independence and idk, I love it for him.

Subcultures. These days, it's just an aesthetic choice.

Being excited to tell your friend something tomorrow, maybe even next week. (Still can do that, but it's less common)
Similar, but not feeling the pressure of being constantly accessible to anyone.

I miss people writing essays by doing research rather than creating click bait posts on social media and expecting the world to fill in the blanks for them.

I traveled to Japan without knowing anything about the language or address system. I was well and truly lost. Upon landing, I had the address of my hotel and knew what subway station I needed to get to, but the numbers on the buildings made absolutely no sense to me. They did not continue by linear means.

It was amazing.

I felt like I was truly in another world. Like I was on an adventure in a video game and had a puzzle I needed to solve. I found a little police hut and asked for help by showing them the address and looking confused. They gave me a map with hand drawn directions. I still have it.

You could probably still do this but just turning off your phone, but I feel like society is different now and people are more likely to wonder why you aren't using it.

The good:

• not always being reachable. Less immediacy. More self discipline without instant answers
• 3rd spaces caused people to mix who wouldn't otherwise. There are fewer these days. It also kept people more civil (in one way or another). Likewise, it provided a buffer against disinfo in some senses since people would call BS on something that was wrong. Contrast this to life today on the internet with weird bubbles and conspiracy theories spread like crazy
• more togetherness and hopefulness. Some of this is probably because I was younger, but even in my really rural, conservative US town, no one was against conservation, not wasting water, being more eco-friendly, and trying to help stop the acid rain and ozone hole. That somehow became very politicized and hopelessness has taken over
• people were in the moment, not filming the moment. This especially sucks at live shows compared to the past. Also people doing dumb shit in public for an internet audience didn't exist for obvious reasons.
• the entertainment was what was on or what you made. No endless distraction or scrolling. More imagination, more involvement in things rather than just posting about it online.
• More privacy, fewer devices constantly sending any telemetry or personal data

The bad:

• not being reachable has consequences in terms of emergencies
• it was easier to get stranded in the past
• things that were missed by forgetting a schedule at home or not knowing it and not being able to look it up
• learning languages was worse IMO. Certainly less variety where I was
• much more casual sexism, homophobia, racism, etc.
• navigation was sometimes harder since maps needed to be updated and one needed to know and to buy the new one. Not a big deal, though, in most areas
• obvious things like medical and other sciences being much more behind. More death.
• HIV/AIDS scare and its consequences on people

I'm sure there's more that will come to me later.

The day's work turning up in the morning post and there being no chance of further work appearing afterwards. The days working in an office before email and PCs were wonderful.

Those before what? For you it feels likethere was a “before" and a now, but for me (54 years old) it feels like continuity. So many people keep asking this question, or promoting some pseudo “better before” era, that I’m starting to wonder if the world didn’t just wake up dumb.When cellphones didn’t exist, the idea of a cellphone‑based world didn’t even occur to us...except in science fiction. Now that I have a smartphone, I’m just glad I can video‑call my kid, buy groceries online while I’m on the road, and get home to cook. There’s nothing “better” or “worse.” Rude people always existed. In my time, you’d walk into a room, say hello, and there was always that one guy who wouldn’t even lift his eyes from his sports magazine.

Everything. The world had so much before we started spending our present in phones. I had time for art and hobbies and writing. I did so much exploration and sports and socializing. Road trips, and events, and helping others. Things were memorable.

Now is more like an addiction. The time goes but I’m never sure where it went. I barely have time to sleep, much less any other activities

Written from my stream of consciousness, edited for grammar:

The simplest answer is that we were able to do dumb things and make dumb choices without it becoming a viral moment that haunted us.

The things that kids in high school did that would be life-shattering now were little more than rumors to most kids in the school. There was no video that circulated, no major social media that allowed the school to sit in judgment of whatever was happening. The thing happened, people talked about it for a few weeks, and aside from a handful of mean people, everyone moved on.

I'm of the Jackass generation, so we had our fill of stupid. We had our fill of online danger too, but there was less permanence to the choices we made in the moment most of the time. We were free to be stupid, and being stupid is a part of growing up that we've forgotten.

Online was different, it was better. I'll die on that hill. We communicated with each other instead of trying to win a popularity contest. Some of the old viral videos were just made to test software and goof off. It was real and human in a way that has been replaced by commercialization. There was stuff you shouldn't see. There were people you shouldn't talk to. But the majority of digital spaces and forums were about communication, debate, and understanding. Yes, there was a lot of degenerate content, but those spaces were relegated to the darker corners of the internet.

I learned more about world history, labor history, sociology, and finance than I had ever learned in high school. Every instance of learning came with the ability to ask questions, and those questions got answered thoroughly, sometimes with sources. It wasn't a game to find the perfect pun or insult. The top-rated comment was the one most people agreed with or appreciated.

I know it isn't the main part of the question, but I honestly blame Tucker Max for the start of the downfall. In his autobiographical book, he walked through a lot of early social engineering and manipulations that I came to see as commonplace online.

I know this is long for the modern internet. It wasn't for my internet. This was about cell phones. My mistake, but then again, the modern internet is experienced through the cell phone. We had to use a computer in the living room or go to a friend's house and access the internet when everyone was asleep. That way we didn't mess with the phone line.

We had walkie-talkies to keep in touch with family in case of emergencies. Sleepovers weren't about scrolling on phones and showing each other videos. We did do that. We used the computer to look at YouTube videos, but we also walked around at night when we shouldn't have, played video games until dawn, and watched Real Sex (the show) on TV. Things were just a little bit harder, so you had to work a little to get anything.

Something else, no matter what you were doing or where you went, you didn't just take a walkie-talkie. You had your radio, then a Walkman, then an MP3 player. You brought your Magic or Pokémon cards to trade. Maybe you would need your camera or a copy of Game Informer, or a cheat code book, etc. Every time you went out, you had to decide what was important to bring, what options you wanted for playing and experiencing things together with your friends.

We were more able to be bored, and that made us more able to be creative, or stupid, if we're bringing it full circle.

I know this seems long, but this post is almost standard for some writing from back then, online at least.

you could absolutely buy singles of songs if you wanted (I would usually buy my singles on cassette cause they were way cheaper), however it was usually more cost effective to buy the whole album. (if you liked the artist and wanted to take the risk)

usually listening to the entire album a few times will get you some pretty decent songs and it meant you got to take time to really appreciate what you had to listen to. also I found that my enjoyment of stuff would change every listen.

the best case scenario is you bought an album and every single song was a banger. and you just don't get that anymore because you have access to everything all the time. so its much easier to just hit the skip button nowadays.

• there being no expectation of being reachable at any moment

• not being under constant surveillance

• not being so brazenly exploited and having my data harvested at every possible opportunity

• not having the world at your fingertips and the associated feelings of needing to make use of that

Having an attention span. I used to be able to sit with a book and read for hours in silence. Now I don’t like when it’s too quiet. And if I play music to counteract that my brain also can’t read the same thing for more than a paragraph because scrolling through Reddit has made it so I don’t have the patience for anything and I want quick, digestible pieces. Watching movies and tv shows is also terrible because I’m constantly checking my phone so I miss a lot of important details. I fully acknowledge I have a phone addiction.

Science fiction dystopias being fictional and set in the "far future".

Being care free. Drinking a beer and smoking down by the river at the age of 15, without the possibility of someone posting it. These days I see kids very self cautious. Which is good in someways, somking half a pack a day as a child might not been the best idea. But there is probably a lot of pent up frustration and stress that they cannot release easily. It's probably very taxing mentally.

Conversations without someone pulling out their phone or checking notifications on their watch.

Also, not knowing something. Pete Homes has this joke about before the Internet there was not knowing something. You just wouldn’t know where Tom Petty was from. You’d go around asking people if they knew. Finally, a woman tells you and that’s how you meet your wife.

I kinda like the idea of it just being okay to not know something but the ADHD in me is screaming.

Going to the video rental store with my family and browsing for movies to watch. Shelves with multiple copies facing you, then you realise that behind the front ones are blank, empty boxes to bulk up the display and none of the ones on the shelf are the ones you actually take home anyway. Seeing the 3D cardboard cutouts advertising new releases.

I also miss christmas TV. Getting a 2 week TV guide and going through it with a pen putting a star next to the things you wanted to see. Recording one channel while watching another when there was a conflict. Big movies that were at the cinema 6 months to a year ago being on TV. Popular series making good Christmas specials. I guess the scarcity of media made it more desirable and christmas tv was an event. Now it is shit but not only because of what's on, but because you've already seen the food stuff that's on, and the Christmas specials are rarer, and not good. Also there's too much 'classic' TV from the 70s I don't care about. Feels lazy that they rely on filling the program with the old instead of making new.

Being unreachable without it feeling weird—peace was built into the day.

You had to organize to meet a place and time. It wasnt just spur of the moment to moment decisions with easy communication.

It meant you actually had to plan and going places was a bit more like a quest and you had to consider other people into your plans.

Top 40 Radio. It was the default in most stores and restaurants.

You didn't have to go hunting for music, music came to you.

People in small towns were hearing Motown and people in the city were hearing Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton.

These days, most of the places I go into have a 1980s station on.

Also, variety TV shows.

I didn't have to worry that someone would call me at a random moment and will assign me some random task.

Not being constantly bombarded with information. Not just the internet, but every source of information (TV, radio, music, even written media) has grown by orders of magnitude. Then you pile email, messaging, social media etc on top of that, dump a shitload of advertising on top of the whole mess, add on a bunch of algorithms to keep you hooked and AI to churn out drivel. We went from information scarcity to a ludicrous excess and perhaps people of my age find it hard not to try to voraciously consume all we can, because that's what we did when we were young, when it was scarce.

Life was quieter back then. You had to find ways to fill your time. Read a book. Draw something. Make something. Of course you can still do those things but now I have to fight to find the time and attention. We live in a world of constant interruption, so many things fighting for our attention. It's tiring.

My parents never used to know where I was and had no way of contacting me. At the time I liked that though I I'm glad smartphones exist now so I can keep track of my kids. If they start doing what I did when I was a kid it would worry me.

We also used to jump off a bridge into the local river, but 2 years ago a kid drowned doing that so now I'm worried about it.

My attention span

Lack of expectation that wherever I am and whatever I do anyone can just call me to get instant answer.

Also - less societal control. Kids nowadays can't go anywhere in public without their parents. They either get kicked out, have police sicced at them, or spaces where anyone can hang out for free are regularly erased. Case in point - even online spaces are now slowly closed from non-adults. In my youth one could go to any of the public spaces and hang out there for free with nobody troubling you.

World now feels like it's strongly geared towards raising slaves - always available, always under control, even rest seems to be paywalled.

Maybe if you typed the question as text instead of a screenshot, you might get some folks to accept the question as legitimate.

those analog landline phones were good

when you mad at someone you could just slam it, nowadays the touchscreen hanging up is not the same effect

Being on holiday really felt like you were in a far away place, cut off from everything familiar. Today, no matter where you go on the planet, everything is kinda the same because you bring your digital environment with you.

Funnily enough I miss the internet. You can kind get the same experience in the right places, but it's not quite the same vibe.

I think my (and probably everyone else's) memory was better when you couldn't just look things up instantly.

When I was a kid, before we had internet connection, I bought my own copy of Visual Basic and spent evenings coding all sorts of stuff.

These days trying to find consentration to get in the flow is way harder

Getting a phone call from a friend, someone else in the house would usually get to the phone first, and you'd pick up another phone on the same line in a diff room, or calling someone you'd usually get their parents first. My step dad had a rough demeanor and would scare my and my siblings friends barking "yeah" at them when he answered we thought was pretty funny because once you knew him he was usually pretty kind & generous and loved cracking dad jokes.

I miss the higher level of engagement and interactions with another person or group when socializing.

Now that everyone has a computer in their pocket, they have an alternative (and sometimes primary) source to engage with during social interactions and events. Now instead of using social skills to change, deepen, or otherwise adjust conversation and engagement on an individual or group level, many people opt out and zone out on their phones instead.

It started with texting. I noticed that at parties or small group interactions, people would oscillate between interacting with the group and texting others either in attendance or not, whichever entertained/engaged them the most. Suddenly instead of parties being full of people who were there to be there and interact with others there, they became full of people who were there until the next exciting thing flashed on their screens and they would just leave without even really being there anyway.

What I’m saying is that people used to be engaged and dedicated in a more wholistic way when socializing, and I miss that. I hate that texting others while you have someone right in front of you that you agreed to spend time with is normal. I hate that I can’t trust anyone to value my time as much as I do theirs, and that apparently I’m taking it too seriously if I do.

Being a child. My grandparents being alive. Not having to go to work. Being able to just go out and do shit and not be answerable to anyone until I came home.

Being inaccessible was a hidden pleasure. Just be where you are

Being able to not be reached for hours on end and it not being an immediate call the search and rescue team and releasing of the bloodhounds. Being able to disconnect was nice.

Turning virtually any high powered device on meant it would have to spin up, power up, cycle, etc. Usually with satisfying whirring, humming, clicking. Nowadays everything boot's up and you might get a chime.

The background noise was pretty high though. Those old circuits and tubes would hum. There was a lot of interference between them, so stereos would click, pop and hum when operating other devices nearby. Things like that.

Lack of FOMO. No constant stream of stuff I am missing out on. Not seeing a childs weekend crushed because everyone said they'd just chill at home, but SoMe clearly shows all gathering leaving you out.

Trying to find the person you wanna hang out with. I remember always riding my bike around my neighborhood trying to find one of my friends and avoiding bullys. Time together seemed so much more intimate. Because you couldn't just call them and ask where they were and instantly get connected.

Just the fact that many people do not realize that looking at your phone constantly when you are out with others shows no manners is infuriating, everybody actually acts like they want to escape reality, and that alone says a lot about what our world have come to, I mean... It's not the phones that are more interesting and everything in it, it's the people who are not and the world around them which makes them behave that way and it's sad.

Learning stuff from books post full time education. It used to be if you wanted to learn about stuff once you left education you would have to read a book, so picking up a new programming language would be either from courses (assuming work is paying), books (like the O'Reilly ones), and self study.

It required more application from the learner than the internet has enabled as instead of having to read an entire book or at least the relevant chapter, you could just read a few stack overflow questions that were vaguely similar to what you needed to know, then copy and paste the bits that you thought would fit.

AI has made that even quicker, and increased the chance of a wrong or misleading answer, and that assumes you are asking it to explain concepts rather than just getting it to write the code for you and hoping it works.

Its reduced the barrier for entry, but is it actually maintaining output quality as understanding of the topic is almost always not the same.

People were present, both in person and when they were sat at the computer chatting on AIM or whatever. Now you fight for the ghost of everyone’s attention all the time.

Actual proper typewriters.

No spellcheck, no always-online license drm, no ai bs forced down your throat, no saving to the fucking cloud.

Just paper, ink, and a machine which hammers the two together with the force of someone who stopped giving a fuck until the bell goes 'ding'.

When the phone rang at home, in our childhood, my sister and I would excitedly race to answer it. Now when my cellphone rings I get an angsty feelings of dread and only look at it 5 minutes after it stops making noise. I also discovered that Nellie Kostychuk (made up name) was caught drunk in the barn during milking time thanks to the good old party line!

This doesn’t directly answer your question, but if any of you are tabletop gamers, check out Tales From the Loop. I’m not in any way affiliated with it, but am GMing a game that does its best to recreate this vibe.

Riding bikes in circles in the cul de sac

Channel surfing

ASL?

Socializing in a spontaneous way.

You showed up, no idea who was gonna be there. Genuine unplanned interactions and meet new people.

As far as writing essays in analog times, I do have fond memories of time spent scratching away with a Quicker Clicker. Running out of lead felt like an accomplishment!

I miss getting on the computer and AIM and chatting with friends.

• We all used the same software
• Status messages and profile pics
• Not on a phone - no expectation or distraction of being always available.

People talked to each other and actually knew how to hold a conversation

No streamers or "influencers"...

Going to video rental stores with film nerd friends

Honestly, not much. Got my first smartphone in my 20s. Been a rather useful and beneficial little tool, nice memory improvement, handy scheduler, source of all of mankinds knowledge and some entertainment as well, can be beneficial for mental health thanks to the huge amount of information in addition to thousands of different perspectives and interpretations of basically every single aspect of everything.

Not many downsides if the usage of it is controlled. Most of the downsides seem to originate from unlimited usage of it.

Climbing trees

Nothing lol. I loved when I first got access to the internet in my early teens, the whole world opened up. Playing with friends or reading the same 20 books in the house over and over again felt very repetitive compared to even early '00s internet.

My dad used to be part of a pre-internet Kate Bush mailing list... In which he would get and send real mail! To send messages, you would make however many copies and mail them to one person who had everyone else's addresses. I continue to think this is super cool and creative.

Reading. I was such a bookworm before YouTube became accessible on phones.

I would always have two books going at a time. Reading was part of my bedtime routine. Now I just fall asleep watching YouTube stuff that I'd be no worse off if I didn't watch. Except ma girl Moriah, she's influenced a lot of my art and craft projects.

My nephews and nieces were raised on YouTube and mobile games. They literally do not know how to play imagination games, they need so much coaching and direction. As kids, we were always acting out our own scenes from TV shows or just our own imaginations. We'd play at lost explorers, under the sea adventures, Captain Planet, etc. It's sad that the kids in my family just have everything fed to them by YouTube, they don't know how to imagine games like this.

Heck, we used to dig up bits of broken crockery and be so proud of this bit of random teacup we found. It's definitely an antique and not just a cup someone broke a few years ago.

The computer experience used to happen at home at a desktop. It wasn’t something you could carry around in your pocket

We would meet up on aim and then do our best to meet up in real life.

We had MapQuest when we need to get somewhere. But we had to print that stuff out, and it wasn’t always Fail safe.

My paternal grandparents. Best adults in my life, loved them dearly, and I still didn't appreciate them as much as I should have.

Spending time with my brain and coming up with creative ways to stimulate it. Didn't have a little device to do it with. Books, writing, daydreaming, drawing, bugging my old sister but also those nice bonding moments.

Hell, I used to write essays for fun 😂

Conversations where people didn't pull out their phone to Google something neither of you could recall and the conversation just went on until hours went by and you were "ah, it was Daniel Radcliffe in that movie!" "Oh yeah!" and then you get to circle back around to it. Idk, just letting the brain naturally rejig it's own memory!

I miss that feeling of going to school on Monday and hearing all the shit that went down on the weekend that I wasn’t there for. I lived far from town with no phone 90% of the time (dad worked nights so it had to be off the hook a lot) so I was always last to know anything. It was freeing. I didn’t care that I had to wait to talk to my friends in person about everything.

The creativity that came with being bored. Without being able to entertain yourself with a phone at every moment, there were plenty of times when we'd hang out with nothing to do and end up having a blast after figuring out stuff to do. It's so easy now to just sit and pass hours surfing the phone, and I think it's taken the drive for that creativity away.

Also, the acceptance of being bored. We could be content for long periods of time just in our own thoughts. We didn't have other people's thoughts to consume all the time. Sometimes I miss my own thoughts, I don't think I give them enough attention nowadays. Back then we didn't have to work at it, oftentimes it was our thoughts or silence.

Wasn't much different for me. I usually walked around reading a mass market paperback book instead of a cell phone just took up more pocket space. I grew up in the 90's so I still had portable gaming like the Gameboy advance too. Thr one I had before that, the nomad was... let's just say NOT as portable. Oh. And my Walkman CD player. Nowadays I just have it all on one device.... my legion go. I use my cell phone exclusively for social media which I had ro go to my computer for, use slow as he'll 56k dial up internet, and browse all message boards and chat rooms for that online social aspect.

Hedge porn

How about when phones did come out and we all had to have the perfect ringtone for everyone? I must have had like 20 different ringtones and then eventually text alerts. We didn't have ten different apps sending us pings. We had call and eventually text.

Let's start with everything and go from there, shall we?

Hanging out with my friends in deep parts of forest near the small town we all grew up in

We would bike out past the highway with backpacks, and make little shelters and a fire ....and just be lads...throw stuff, sometimes at each other, see who could lift the biggest rock, or jump the widest part of the stream, fish, make a lean-to...we made a neat little spot over a few years

we experienced being totally and completely lost once then, which was a very humbling and powerful experience I can still remember the realization of total silence and total loss of sense of direction....but, we didnt panic, stayed together found our way home

We also played a ton of baseball w tennis balls during the summer in a park that was kinda in between everyone's homes - tennis balls were fun cause they didnt hurt you if you got beaned , or break peoples wnidows around the park, and also dont travel very far, so make for some fun pop-up fly balls

good times

Chiming in again to say physical tickets to shows. I miss them. I still have a lot of the old ones I collected, too.

The quiet

Being young.

I feel like you were more likely to learn things at more than a surface level. You had to learn to operate and maintain more stuff than now. It's basically discouraged with all the disposable items these days. And because you didn't have the device of all entertainment at your hands you were more likely to go just do random stuff. Have random IRL experiences. More likely to get exercise just doing shit.

Young person here: I feel a lot of these things that you miss are just you missing childhood altogether, although I'm sure there are plenty of real things to miss from the era but I also miss being 10 and relate to plenty of these things despite growing up in the 2010s.

...actually that's a really good takeaway. Thank you for educating me. ..ananon person...

I just miss being able to focus on what I was currently doing. Even if that thing was boring, at least I was there, at that moment, experiencing boredom.

My entire existence now seems to be in 300 character blurbs. Even real life stuff. If I'm bored for more than 30 seconds I pull out my phone and start consuming more blurbs from around the world. Watching an entire movie feels like too much of a commitment...

being able to walk to your friends house?

Common sense. See for example the work of Neil Postman.

I miss phone screening. I wish I could just let all calls go to my answering machine and if the caller is leaving a legit message about something I could pick up, or if the caller was a telemarketer or someone I didn't want to talk to, let them think I wasn't home. Now, if someone calls and I don't pick up, I have to explain that the phone was in another room and I didn't hear it even though everyone knows I'm on Lemmy 24/7.

my mum. definitely my mum

Coming back to my dorm room and listening to my drunk friends messages they left on my answering machine.

Getting together in person to socialize.

Calling friends on the phone and having an actual conversation being a normal thing. And heck, you might get to know their family a little too because you never knew who was going to pick up the phone.

Feeling perfectly confident without a phone in your pocket. Driving somewhere unfamiliar? No worries, if you get lost just pull over at a gas station and ask for directions.

Being free and on your own when out and about. No constant distractions and interruptions from a cell phone and people trying to get your attention via your digital tether.

Limited choice in game, movie, and TV (no downloads/streaming on a whim) meant sometimes you were bored with what you had, so you'd go outside to have fun, or over to a friend's house.

The ideas and innovations that you would have because your brain wasn't constantly bombarded by distractions and overstimulation.

Technological developments feeling exciting and inspiring optimism for a better world rather than dystopian and oppressive.

Reduced expectations; people didn't expect everything instantly and the pace of life felt more chill.

Feeling like a real person in a real world.

I miss being left in the middle of nowhere after the bus left without me and not being able to walk home. Or call for that matter.

I had no idea what the number was, didn't have money for a payphone, and didn't have a convenient device that saves the number, is prepaid for the call, and oh yeah, allows you to make the fucking call itself.

Speculation as a topic of conversation. You see a weird object somewhere or you wonder about some random trivia. You don't have Google to immediately look it up so you guess. It become a game with your companions. "Who do you think...?" Then you try to reason out an answer. It's a fun mental exercise. It still possible of course but most people wouldn't think to do it.

I miss calling my friend on the landline and asking their parents if they are available. I miss walking to my friends house and asking their parents if they are home/available.

I miss MSN/ICQ/AIM being the only way to instant message and you had to be physically at the computer to do it -- ie. When you were not at home you were not reachable

It was nice.

I mean, my childhood was pretty recent, but I was phone free until 16 and only had a sim in that phone when I was 17.

Childhood was strange, because I was seemingly one of the only ones without a phone , as well as how the ones with phones had worse attention spans, less will to organise themselves, and more distracted, despite the fact that I was one of the neurodivergent ones.

Being a teen was also strange, since my friends would send me something on instagram or Snapchat, then for the millionth time realise I don’t actually have a phone, until of course a friend gave me a semi old flagship phone for free.

it was quieter. it was easier to avoid distractions.

I got my first (non-smart) cell phone at 11, first Android smartphone at 15...

My answer to this is: not really anything? Having a cell phone and a smartphone has made my life much easier, more fun and less boring, I would not want to go back to a world without it. I (kinda) do want to go back to (approximately) the state of the Internet at the time, but would still want to be able to access it from a mobile device!

I remember during the time when I already had a Nintendo DS but the first iPhone hadn't been announced yet, I would occasionally be bored at school and fantasize about how awesome it would be if my Nintendo DS could connect to the Internet anywhere I went. A few years later I got almost exactly that (looked a bit different from how I imagined though). :D

Nothing. It was dreadful.

Not having stupid questions like this.