there was no expectation to be constantly immediately available. you didn’t have the world at your fingertips, so there was no pressure to immediately resolve all situations.

it was nice. slower. less pressure.

oh and the lower level of blatant exploitation and theft by mega corps and the uber wealthy was nice. not good enough still, but better than now

We all wore onions on our belts, which was the style at the time.

More srsly by the 1990s we were about as internet addicted as we are now. There just weren’t smartphones, so you were offline when you went out of the house away from your computer. You usually did have a voice cell phone, initially analog (AMPS) but later digital with SMS messages. Also, when you were online, the web didn’t suck as badly as it does now. There was less bandwidth for megabytes of javascript bloat, etc.

Analog. I didn’t have the internet until my last year of college (and i didn’t have a celphone until 2013). I grew up completely outside. My parents had no idea where i was until the sun went down…every day. I spent my childhood skateboarding, and wasn’t allowed to play videogames, or eat at McDonalds.

Get offa my lawn

late 80s here. We had a nice world before 9/11. there was hope.

Quick on the bathroom note… Meeting groups was wild. “Okay, everyone’s gonna be at the food court at 2.” And if you didn’t make it we’d hang out and wait until the group decided you’d died or something and we’d hear about it in school in a couple of days.

Also, getting loser drunk in front of your friends was a learning experience, not a thing that would circle the school forever in video form.

The Internet was slow and weird (in a good way).

The food wasn’t great.

And the music was distressingly square.

I was wearing an onion for a belt, as was the fashion at the time.

Better in a lot of ways

Imagine life with no internet, no cell phones, and personal computers were both very rare and very few people knew how to use them.

We walked to school in the snow. Uphill. Both ways!
Now get off my lawn!

Jokes aside, I think one thing we had pretty good was not having to live in constant fear of every stupid thing we did likely being put online immediately. And there not being an “online” where your mistakes would haunt you forever. I did a lot of stupid stuff in my late teens and early 20’s. And there is thankfully very little evidence of any of it. Kids these days don’t often have that luxury. We’re all young and stupid at some point. As you get older, that stupid stuff should be something you and your friends laugh about over beers, not something you fear a current employer is going to find at the top of the results when they google your name.

That said, the easy access to media and information is insanely cool. If I want to learn about the mating habits of marmosets, there is likely an in-depth Wikipedia article with way, way too much information. And it’s likely up to date and well edited. Compare that to whatever blurb might be in the encyclopedias at your local or school library, plus anything you could dig out of the periodicals and microfiche, and it’s not even in the same universe of information availability. Sure, there’s a lot more to sift through online. And it’s getting easier and easier to get lost in a sea of misinformation. But, you still stand a much better chance today of finding more, faster, than what we had back then. It’s funny to think back about instructors making a big deal about not using Wikipedia when it first came out. Now, it’s likely recommended as the first stop in researching something.

Also, I have a fucking computer in my pocket with more processing power than the entire world had available when we sent men to the moon. And I can use that computer to communicate with nearly anyone in the world instantaneously. And that computer can access that insane wealth of knowledge I just mentioned above. Again, almost instantly, from most places I am likely to be. I can be taking a shit in the woods and reading up on marmosets fucking while chatting with someone shitting on Twitter. It’s the goddamn future over here.

It was just easier. I grew up after the Vietnam war and before the gulf one.

There was more help for people from the government. There was more freedom in daily life.living was easier. A 17year old could get a roommate and support themselves living independently working part time at fast food places. Simply having a job was enough to live.

There was a difference between being poor and being in poverty.

College was something you could get a job and work through with minimal debt.

Computers were just getting popular when I was young and it was easy to get a job based On what would now be basic technical skills.

The internet made noises and was crunchy.

People still struggled but I was easier for my generation than it is for the current kids.

Mid of the 80s in Europe.

When I was in primary school a corruption scandal wiped out our political class and this gave us 20 years of tycoonism.

It was always fun calling your friends house on the land line and their dad picks up. You sheepishly ask if your friend is home and immediately hear their name shouted across their house through the phone.

It was the free-est, most affordable, and happiest days that the world will be in my lifetime.

People were a lot less emotionally literate or aware of mental health issues. Autism and ADHD went undiagnosed if you were able to compensate half decently (you were just treated like you were being difficult on purpose). And kids were more brutal to each other.

The music was on point, though. I still enjoy me some Goldfinger.