Not knowing everything all the time led to more interesting conversations.
I still say I prefer wild conjecture.
Yes, also. More strongly I feel not being able to contact or be contacted, on chronic but varying intervals, gave me a freedom i didn't grasp by then, free from worries or work dependancies. I feel I was more independent and more relying on myself.
The mobile communication tool has became something else.
Also less self proclaimed experts.
On a related note, not having to know literally everything a public person has done before feeling safe to express even the most basic support for their work.
I appreciate the accountability, I don't want to support bad people, but back in the day it was like "I enjoyed that album" and then you went back to living your life. Lack of information made separating the art from the artist the default and it made enjoying new stuff take so much less effort.
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
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.
What you are describing is monoculture and is exactly what I came to add.
A song that you love is playing on the radio :)
The idea that I would do something useful with my life
I feel this so hard.
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.
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 a child with relatively little responsibility
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.
Hide and go seek tag with all the kids in the neighborhood at dusk.
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.
The part near the start about things not being permanent. We can get back to that, people simply need to collectively get over the fact that people do dumb shit sometimes. We, as a society, used to know this. You would get ragged on for a bit, then it was simply a funny story years later you and your friends re-tell while you laugh at how dumb you all were.
We also forgot one should not use their real name online. That is still the biggest WTF to me.
I agree 100%. There used to be a level of unspoken understanding. Not everywhere, but there was a vocal majority that defended the stupidity of the young.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Riding bikes in circles in the cul de sac
Channel surfing
ASL?
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.
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.
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.
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.
The good:
The bad:
I'm sure there's more that will come to me later.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
I just don't like the account nonsense.
If it's required at a physical business, guess I'm going home.
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.
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.
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