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.

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.

Climbing trees

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.