Being unreachable without it feeling weird—peace was built into the day.
This was such a beautiful thing.
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.
Socializing in a spontaneous way.
You showed up, no idea who was gonna be there. Genuine unplanned interactions and meet new people.
The quiet
Coming back to my dorm room and listening to my drunk friends messages they left on my answering machine.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Yeah less infested with all those big corpo “attention-based-economy” bullshit. More personal touch. This got way worse since AI too…
Being inaccessible was a hidden pleasure. Just be where you are
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.
Privacy.
I remember when it all first started. They’d say “If you don’t have anything to hide then what’s the problem?” Now look where we’re at, have an emergency, trying to get out of a bad situation, maybe the forest is on fire - sorry your car won’t start until you calm down. Give it another few years and it’ll be much much worse. Anyone who supports this is a complete moron.
And healthy skepticism. People too easily hand over their personal info these days.
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.
You can choose slow living. I felt this way a few years ago and slowly have eased myself back into the real world by choice. It’s hard but slowly going back to analog has actually made my mental health and personal relationships so much better, I’ve even made new friends, I was told that was impossible on your 30 but it’s very possible of you find other analog people.
Climbing trees
