The idea is very different than the reality. The freedom of information, communication, and variety are so much better now.
Need a job, get a newspaper for classified ads and take whatever you can get, or start calling friends and networking when you’re lucky to get a voicemail.
Want to unwind and watch something? You can spend all evening flipping through channel after channel of garbage.
Need to learn something, prepare to spend days going to different public libraries to find anything useful. Most people don’t learn anything. Most people’s only adult social connection is though religion. It is a small dumb world where I grew up.
One thing I would not take for granted is the massive amount of information out there for repairing/ fixing things in your home. If you have an issue with your lawn mower, I guarantee that someone recorded a video of how to fix it step by step. It is absolutely mind boggling what we have at our finger tips.
Same for things like learning music. Back in the day if you didn’t know another good musician, you’d have to gradually piece together different techniques, chords, etc. yourself. Stuff that took me years to figure out you can learn in minutes now.___
It was probably somewhat beneficial that we all had to go outside and do something through; but yeah in smaller places your only real option would be a church or bar. I miss being able to hang out at the mall, for example; where you’d bump into your friends etc and different groups where there. Was sometimes like a big party. Then again, I was also a kid, we still had arcades that weren’t just dirty ticket casinos.
Yes, the amount of time you spent just isolated and bored was unfathomable to people today.
I called my grandfather when I wanted to learn something. The library was the backup if he didn’t know. He was a well educated engineer, and my grandmother also had a university education and an excellent knowledge of literature.
I wouldn’t mind killing off social media, but I have offline copies of Wikipedia for a reason. That shit is important.
I used to send emails to libraries for information on a certain topic and got back lots of information
How do you get an email address for a library that is actually monitored by a human that would respond?
Libraries provide it as a free service. It’s called virtual reference. Here is one such service I found by searching.
I definitely feel like people are looking at things through research tinted glasses. I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about that stuff.
But at the same time I just got my associates degree while working full time. I didn’t have to go to classes because it was all online. I didn’t need to go spend hours at the library. I was able to type up my papers.
If the majority of people don’t want things like social media, they can always stop. They can find a basic phone. “But they need it for work.” Sounds to me like work is only easier then. I’d rather have easier work.
Edit: I will say though, sometimes I do actually miss some things. Like I wouldn’t mind renting a movie every now and then if I could afford it. It made getting a movie more special. But even then, the convenience of streaming is also hard to beat.
The quality of streaming subscription content is as bad as old cable now. I do without that one. The newer trend of credentialed science communicators sharing white paper summaries and science news takes is really wonderful IMO.
Ah, the good old remantization of the things you don’t know.
If they’re so eager about it, they can try taking their hands off the phone, for change.
Doesn’t change expectations of others for you to respond to work emails or other shit at all hours. Doesn’t bring back the days of concert going paying attention instead of 800 phones being held up to record some shitty angle that will never be watched again, or people being rude while checking out, or distracted driving.
Doesn’t change expectations of others for you to respond to work emails or other shit at all hours.
That was still a thing before the internet/cellphones. My dad would receive phone calls at home at all hours back in the 90s and he was just a low level manager. He just pretended to not be home. When work gave him a cell phone, he would just turn it off when he left work and pretend his phone died.
But that doesn’t take away that other people will be on their phone when you’re with them
AT THE TONE THE TIME WILL BE 12:49 AND 50 SECONDS. BEEP!
No thanks. I like my internet time sync and GPS navigation.
OMG, I forgot about calling to get the time of day.
Oh that brings back memories.
I have to wonder if the real discussion here is between ‘pre-internet’ or ‘not the internet where you’re the product being sold and sold to’, because I strongly suspect it’s the latter that’s the issue here.
I’m just barely old enough to recall how things worked before the internet and I don’t think people would ever really want to go back to not being able to watch anything they want, any time they want, or not having turn-by-turn directions or even things like ordering a pizza by having to call someone on the phone.
You hit the nail on the head. I don’t want to give up the data, I want to get rid of the constant advertising. Online life became much nicer once I set up my Pihole.
I, for one, don’t miss waiting 2 hours to try and meet up with people who might have forgotten when or where we decided to meet up at, three weeks ago.
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I was just thinking this earlier today. Life just seemed more simple.
most definitely. no expectation of being available 24/7.
Yeah, it was. But only because it was in the 80s and I was in my early teens back then. I don’t think the world was much simpler though. I was just looking at it through oblivious eyes of youth…
Cold War was in its heyday. Russia was at war, just like today. Ronald Regan came to power. There were bloody and terrible terrorist attacks. Chernobyl blew up etc etc.
It was a shitshow.
@dystop bullshit.
you think you do, but you don’tImagine going on a road trip and getting stuck somewhere 3 hours from home with no cell phone
Do we miss a time before the internet? Or do we miss a pre-2008 time when real wages were higher but also houses and cars were cheaper?
As an elder millenial, I wonder if the only people they asked were elder millenials and boomers? Because I certainly wouldn’t like to go back. Sure, I have a certain romanticism about the past (90s were the best, etc etc), I got to experience growing up both before and during the technological boom which gave a sort of “generational/technological whiplash” in a unique time in history. I remember using a corded button dial phone and the actual rotary phone my parents used to keep around for nostalgia.
But man, the internet, for better or worse, opened my eyes to so many things that I would’ve been oblivious to if not for that. So many social causes, injustices, climate and political issues, so many different communities. If it wasn’t for the internet, I never would have met a great community in college that ended up gaining me a lot of friends and a job, and so many wonderful experiences. If not for cell phones, I’d have no way of calling for help when my car broke down (one of many times) in the middle of the expressway at night, or when making plans with friends or trying to find directions to some place.
No thanks, I would very much like to stay in the present.
I wonder if ‘majority of Americans’ really means the guy who wrote this article.
Though in all seriousness I just cannot comprehend that there are people out there who really think the negatives of all this tech outweigh the positives.
I would like to return to a time where we had the Internet, but not everyone was on it. i.e. your grandfather, your drunk neighbor upstairs, etc.
At least I would like to return to a point where we didn’t have Social Media… No twitter. No Reddit even which would kill this website i guess heh. But I wouldn’t mind going back to the olden days of Forums and BBS Boards.
No way, maps and GPS are far too useful.
