Who remembers life BEFORE the internet, twitter, facebook???

Good and bad, I won't say a more bucolic life regarding technology was necessarily a simpler life.

I also walked to bars much more seeking company with the resulting trouble, and blasted Sepultura on my hi-fi in the middle of the night, thus waking up people I sheepishly had to face the following day.

Then there was the whole issue of talking on the landline with no privacy (the whole house could hear, especially if one whispered), and only reaching people when they were at home (which meant one usually annoyed their parents).

If somebody arrived late for a meeting, for example, at a shopping mall, then one had to wait or leave.
There was no way to confirm if the meeting is still on.

Nope, give me cyberspace and cellular phones anytime.

Nice thread Homer.

Ahh - the good old days. Black and white TV, pay phones, actual mail, we heated stuff up on the stove top.

AM radio, CB radios, Bonanza, test pattern on the telly - all night.

Home cooking, tree houses, bows and arrows - slingshots (homemade), cowboys and indians.

Possibly one of the great parts; was that there was no such thing as political correctness.

Gay mean't happy, a fag was a cigarette, a dyke was something only of concern to Dutch folk.

"Wait 'till your Father gets home!" struck a chord of fear. Milkmen, bakers, sani carters, typists, stenographers.

Cars you could fix yourself etc.

We have moved on. Mostly for the better; yet I can't help feeling that today's kids have missed out on something
intangible that can no longer be found in this materialistic - disposable world in which we now find ourselves ...

reply to post by HomerinNC


Growing up in the 60's we had a black and white television. We watched the news every night and westerns. I played outside from morning until dinner time during the summer, and after dinner during the school year. I read a lot of books and spent a lot of time at the library. Our stairway to the bedrooms was stacked on each side with library books (my mom was always complaining about that ) During the summer my friends and I would take old blankets and make a tent using a clothes line and sleep outside. I collected rocks and rode my bike a lot. We would venture into the woods at the end of our street and spend the entire day there.

I miss those days. The kids today don't know what they missed out on.

I would often do a lot of pranks, one of my favorite was taking poops in random elevators. Then watching to see if anyone would get on and ride it. And most people would ride it anyway, which was always a good laugh.

Internet wasn't public until 89 and world wide web didn't come along until 93.

I used to read my parents Encyclopedia Britannica for fun. The whole set was probably six feet long and a good twenty volumes. I'm sure I at least glanced at every single page in the set and read a lot of them.

The first time I was at a movie theater you could get into a Saturday matinee with two movies and cartoons for a quarter and get a popcorn and a coke for another quarter.

Summer camp.

Fishing.

Tree houses

More reading

I remember it taking a quarter to play a video game by the time I was in high school.

I was in the Army before the internet was big and spent a decade traveling the world before I ever really got into internet/ computers and all of that.

I think people were closer back then.

Now everybody communicates from an anonymous distance.

Before the internet...I used to like to write stores and draw. I also did quite a bit of reading, but not as much as I should have. I remember looking forward to it raining or snowing so I could go outside and play in it...Hmm...

I'm in the age group of people who were born in the mid 60's. Life before social media and cell phones was much better in many ways. I have to say, I really enjoy the internet as prior to the internet, the town I lived in had a very small library and data mining valuable information was very time consuming. I remember going to a big city and going to the library as it was enormous and full of up-to-date information.

I know for a fact I have less of a social life in person with people due to what others call the modern conveniences of Facebook, Twitter, Internet, cell phones, etc. We use to plan BBQ's and dinners much more frequently than now. People seem way to busy, but in a bad way. It's like they get their virtual people fix on the above and have no time for real relationships.

What really gets me is the amount of time the older people in my family (step mother, mother-in-law, etc) spend on Facebook. I swear if this happens to me, I'd rather be dead. What a waste of a life and retirement!