Or did it not change much..? Or maybe it’s ironically more lonely today?
People that lived before the internet, and maybe cellphones, was the world lonelier than it is now?
r/ask
Or did it not change much..? Or maybe it’s ironically more lonely today?
Comments
📣 Reminder for our users
>1. Check the rules: Please take a moment to review our rules, Reddiquette, and Reddit’s Content Policy.
>2. Clear question in the title: Make sure your question is clear and placed in the title. You can add details in the body of your post, but please keep it under 600 characters.
>3. Closed-Ended Questions Only: Questions should be closed-ended, meaning they can be answered with a clear, factual response. Avoid questions that ask for opinions instead of facts.
>4. Be Polite and Civil: Personal attacks, harassment, or inflammatory behavior will be removed. Repeated offenses may result in a ban. Any homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, or bigoted remarks will result in an immediate ban.
🚫 Commonly Asked Prohibited Question Subjects:
>1. Medical or pharmaceutical questions
>2. Legal or legality-related questions
>3. Technical/meta questions (help with Reddit)
This list is not exhaustive, so we recommend reviewing the full rules for more details on content limits.
✓ Mark your answers!
>If your question has been answered, please reply with
Answered!!to the response that best fit your question. This helps the community stay organized and focused on providing useful answers.I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
No
No, was young then so different place in life so hard to say if it would be different if I was the same age back then. Saw people face to face more
Picture a world where you go to a restaurant. Take a look around. Everyone; kids, mothers, fathers, friends, all engaging in conversations with each other. Go to the movie theater, no luminous glow coming from the audience itself, just the screen. Everyone watching. Go out anywhere in public, a mall (that’s right, shopping mall), people talking to people. Idk the internet and cell phones definitely give us great things. I feel we were much more social before “social” became an online thing.
No.
People spoke to each other.
Pubs were pubs. Where people met and spoke to each other.
I remember when mobiles were new, and if someone was on a call in public, they would be called a wander.
To pull one out in a restaurant was a big no.
People would leave messages with others and agree to meet at places and actually turn up.
I love tech, but I am not sold that the positives outweigh the negatives.
No it wasn’t.
Not at all. I felt more connected for the most part. People were generally more present without phones or even before phones became as big as they are now
Lol, not at all. At least not for me and I think also not in general. Before the internet and cellphones, people used to talk and meet in person. Or had hour longs conversations on the phone.
Not that I remember, but i was a kid playing with friends and spending time with family a lot.
No, it was quieter in your head though. You maybe obsessed about things but you obsessed about 10% of the things you do now, simply because now you have an exponential increase in things you know about, and therefore can have anxiety about.
It was less lonely actually.
It was the opposite. If you wanted to do anything social you had to go out and you would end up mingling with people you wouldn’t have otherwise and by default you end up with friends.
Therapy was the bar in the corner
Kids playing while mom and dad had a beer im the terrace with other dadañs
Hell no.
Not at all.. lonelier now.
Hard to say in my case because there’s so many confounding factors. My memories from “before internet” were 2000-2002 when we lived off grid, middle of nowhere at the end of an hour-long dirt road.
Massive construction site and I was the only kid. But still it felt like everything there was vivid. The adults were always chatting. I was listening to every conversation. I could walk up to anyone and just strike up conversation, ask for candy, watch them do construction stuff, just livin the life. Loved listening to conversations.
But it’s not just the people that were interesting but the context overall. Like, this was like misty mountains level of awe with waterfalls running down the side of the mountain during the monsoon. The rain would just cause the river to turn into this aggressive turbulent foam, the dam would seize and you can feel the energy of the engineers doing everything to open the gates and failing as the river caps over the top of it. Just amazing feeling that mist hitting my face surrounded by water like I’m nothing.
Then hike back up to the living areas and see what they were cooking for the contractors, massive shovels on the most ridiculous gas burner, chow mein or something, they wave, smile, no idea what they’re saying because different language, but the food smells good…
Hike up a little more to the engineering area, see whats cooking there. Momos, fucking love momos. The people outside would be like oooo hi hi, wanna help us? No no, just watching. And I pop into the inside kitchen and he’s steaming them, smells amazing. Hiiii want a momo? I felt guilty eroding their food, so just one. I’d hang out with the dogs, ride by bike around, wave at the guard carrying an M16… I avoided eye contact with the people carrying guns for the most part though but maybe that initial fear from that first wave is what seared into my memory. Anyway. For the most part things seemed well connected.
Before 2000 it was like, stereotypical American rural neighborhood with trees lining the road. Had friends across the street and we’d play in the street. Mostly riding bikes. Would ride forever until the sun went down. If we played games, it’d be at Carl’s house. We never went to Jessica’s house except for trampoline. Otherwise backyard stuff happened at our house. What we did I have no idea. Digging holes? Peeing in the holes? But lots of talking… lots of playing. I have no idea where Jessica and Carl are up to anymore. Last I saw them was in 2000 before I realized I was never coming home. I don’t think my brain really registered the concept of what it meant to lose friends.
Tl;dr: It didn’t feel lonely in my case. No way. Definitely not. Any questions?
I’d say much less, everyday we all met up and did stupid crap together, or at least just hang out in person for hours if we didn’t happen to be doing something stupid.
It was certainly lonelier being a Nerd. It was hard to find other people who shared your interests. In fact I didn’t even know that other people like me existed.
Less lonely. People would go out and do stuff. There was a lot more parties, crazy shenanigans and just going out and doing stuff. Heading down to a local river and swimming, bonfires, long bike rides, beach days. Feels like now people don’t want to leave the house anymore.
We were ignorant to what we didn’t have(because it wasn’t yet wide spread as it is now. One of the many skills we learned early was how to entertain ourselves and to be comfortable with being by ourselves. As well as critical social skills that aren’t as common these days. It wasn’t lonely, it was peaceful.
It could be. I was a nerdy kid and nobody around me really liked anything I was into and I in general didn’t really feel like I belonged or fit in. It WAS quite lonely. Getting Internet and suddenly discovering all these people who were just like me was like a breath of fresh air after nearly drowning. It was amazing.
It was the opposite actually. People would socialise much more in person before smartphones and social media.
Quite the opposite really. People went out more, had more routine interactions with other people.
People actually communicated face to face and talked on the phone directly. It was much less lonely.
[deleted]
No we had actual friend who we would go and see.
It’s definitely made it more lonely.
Before the internet and cell phones, if you wanted to interact with someone you had to either meet them in person or call them on the phone.
No texting. No social media. No anonymous internet posts.
No it was more social as beer wasn’t to dear and people weren’t idiots or scammers
No, other way
It was very much less lonely as the other comments have described.
The complete opposite
Less lonely. People had to interact in person. Screens & the internet seem to enable & empower assholes more than anything else. People are more cognizant of how their words & deeds are perceived by others in person. Empathy & the internet seem to be repellent of each other, with a few notable exceptions
No it was way WAY social as we actually went to places and hanged out with friends and other people and did things together instead of just chatting with phone that could as well be and AI chat bot.
The current day life is like completely mirror universe life compared to what life used to be before smartphones and internet.
No. I always had a friend or a book with me. From 8 years old and up.
Less lonely, if anything. People made an effort. You’d drive to someone’s house to visit them, even if you weren’t sure that they were home. Making plans was serious, you’d agree to meet somewhere and that was a real commitment, you couldn’t text at the last minute to bail, someone would be standing alone on a street corner, thinking you’d died in an accident.
If you wanted to meet people, you had to go out. Want to find a girlfriend? You’d have to approach her in some way and demonstrate interest. Being shy wasn’t an option.
As a child, you’d go around to see if the neighbour’s kids were able to come out and play… if they weren’t knocking on your door first.
Honestly, for all the technology, I’m not sure we socialise any better. It sometimes feels far worse and more lonely.
Less lonely. You actually saw people.
Much much less lonely. If there’s one invention I’d get rid of, it’s the smart phone (even over nukes).
It was not as lonely as it is today.
It’s lonelier now.
Before, you actually had to make friends and hang out with them and talk on the phone.
It wasn’t lonelier but it was much, much smaller.
No. Any social connections, imo, were more real and required an effort to maintain, so people were more invested. It’s much lonelier now. Sure, everything feels more “connected” but it’s all superficial.
It is both unforgettable and indescribable to those that didn’t see it.
Quite the opposite, actually. Everyone was calling and VISITING each other constantly. It wasnormal to just go to your friends house without notice, then go out to a third place to hang out and be social.
As a teenager in the early 90s, we’d really only talk on a phone to make plans to meet up face to face.
Technology created gaps between people. Touch is supplanted by Zoom and hand sanitizer. Human nature itself has been negatively disrupted.
No.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the internet. And I like smart-phones.
But growing up in the 70s… We played football(soccer), we rode bicyles, we messed around in woodland, played golf on fields and actually remembered people’s phone numbers so we could call them (from our house to theirs).
Then as adulthood came in, just before the first wave of dumb-phones, we met up in pubs or went to the cinema.
Now…Kids are stuck in playing video games and getting cyber bullied and adults whilst still meeting up at homes or pubs can’t leave their fucking phones alone for more than 2 minutes. “NO I DON’T WANT TO SEE A FUNNY VIDEO YOU SAW YESTERDAY!!”
The saddest sight is a restaurant table with 6 people all looking at their bloody phones!
🙂
It was better honestly. I’m not even a social person but I preferred life in the 90s
The world was so much richer than it is today. People interacted with each other in person and they went places and met new people.
We live in a world of perceived lonliness where more people are lonely because they see others who aren’t more commonly and have more access to things that show more idealised existences.
If people didn’t see the world as how it could be and hyperfocus on that they wouldn’t feel so bad.
Sadly it’s a much lonelier place now.
Lol, no…bless your heart. People actually talked and interacted with each other directly. Because nothing was anonymous, people were cordial and polite. Screens have displaced relationships and civility has been lost in your lifetime.
I physically hung out with my friends everyday and all we did was talk. We didn’t have a phone to pull out and disengage. Go out to dinner, everyone is fully present and connected in the moment talking
Opposite.
Dunno if it was but I know I spent a lot more time outside playing with friends or just finding ways to have fun by myself. When I got a PC and internet access I did that a lot less.
No, it wasn’t.
People interacted with each other more, and understood that when you talked with others, you needed to be respectful. Now people argue online with people they can’t see in quite vicious ways, and take that attitude out into the real world.
Granted that nostalgia can be a bit of a liar, and plenty of things were definitely harder to do, took more time, etc. Looking at maps to travel definitely required more planning and forethought than firing up Google Maps, and getting lost was a real thing. But at least you could stop and ask someone for directions. Now, if you flag down a stranger, they think you’re trying to kidnap or rob them.
Lower tech meant people needed to cooperate to get things done. Now you can do a lot more alone, but it’s led to some people becoming complete islands. It’s not a positive thing when you can’t have a face-to-face interaction with a stranger without getting upset or overwhelmed.
Let me put it like this: phone calls could drag out for hours because we hadn’t anything else to do. Except read and all the books i had at home, i had read like 30 times.
Sure, we had bad tv and i had first a C64 and later an Amiga 500 with lots and lots of games…but the boredom always was there in the background and i lived out in the countryside so yeah…would have done things a lot different if i did them again! 😉
We had actual third places. You had to go there toeet people unless you called them, but that only worked if they were home. Cellphones and the Internet made the world smaller and lonlier.
No , it was less lonely and more happy. People had to socialise and actually talk
More boring, less lonely.
Definitely not, it was so much better.
Rural area, and I was the odd one, with fairly severe health issues. It was very, very lonely.
Cue 10-12 years where the internet was small, and full of outcasts and nerds. I could log on and have meaningful conversations pretty much daily.
And then smartphones popped up, and people started to treat each other as disposable entertainment online. And yeah. I am glad I still have a fair share of the people I got to know in the 90s, cause internet has become oddly empty again.
Life was much, much better. Poor mental health was far less prevalent. Not saying depression or anxiety didn’t exist, but it didn’t affect every third person as it seems to today.
Life was MUCH better.
We have what you called “fun”
No, it was better. Much better.
Absolutely not.
Quite the opposite. It was less lonely and people were generally nicer and easier to talk to
Why do I feel like this question is a test question for an early American history class (America before 1970)?
Nope, I would hang out with friends more and we had to entertain ourselves using our imaginations
“People that lived before the internet and maybe cellphones”???
Though both were around for some time neither were really common until the early 2000s and even then they didn’t really work well together.
Internet started becoming more common in the mid 90s and cellphones didn’t really catch on until about 5 years after that. So your question is really “Anyone over the age of 35 was the world lonelier”?
The answer is no, the world was not lonelier. We actually socialized “IRL”
In olden times we got together and actually had conversations without looking at phones. We held eye contact with each other. If we needed to make a call, we’d use the nearest payphone. We wrote actual letters to each other, put stamps on them and dropped them in a mailbox. People now seem incapable of truly being present with each other, always preoccupied with email, texts, WhatsApp, etc. I believe this is the loneliest period of human history ever.
Nobody seemed to mention but also there were less flakey people. You had to agree on doing something, and couldn’t cancel last minute as there was no way to notify the other person. You were more likely to turn up.
We were less bored and more creative
Less lonely. Granted, making friends when you’re a kid is much easier, but also seeing people in person was how you connected. Phones were mostly just to plan the next outing that actually happened.
But I think there is some impact of just being an adult rather than a child. I will say my parents were both on bowling leagues and had other group outings.
I actually did a bowling league a few years back. I’d like to do it again.
You were way more connected to people.
It sounds wrong, but with fewer ways to contact people, you were always in touch personally.
Less lonely
More sociable, you made an effort to go and see people.
I’m 54yo and I feel my generation had the best of both worlds. We grew up before the internet and cell phones, but those things came along when we were still fairly young in our mid 20’s. So we know the “old ways” of doing things but also got to experience the new technology.
Lonely isn’t the word I’d use to describe life before the internet. I would say it was more peaceful. You weren’t exposed to everyone elses BS day in and day out like we are now on social media. Every restaurant complaint, every marriage disagreement, every misbehaving child, every new cause to sympathize…it just ends up desensitizing us to other peoples problems because we have to hear so much from so many people.
It was much more lonely
It was so much better! People actually struck up conversations randomly. Walk by someone and they would always say hi. It was much friendlier and neighbourly.
I would argue it was the opposite. We were less lonely. Not idolising ‘influencers’ coveting their lifestyles. And we spoke to each other.
Because boredom created a theme that people actually want to talk to others to break the boredom.
People went out and did stuff and associated in groups. That doesn’t happen as much now. Plus people are much busier now so it’s hard to find people to do things with on short notice. While cell phones make it easier to interact with people, it’s not done face to face anymore.
Much less lonely. At least for me. There was always a plan. Meet somewhere, do something, call at a certain time. I certainly did a lot more outside the house back then. I had plans practically every day.
It was for me. I was the weird one so I always felt alone and left out. Loads of people around but they weren’t ‘my people’ and I then just prefered to be alone. It’s far less lonely to be alone than to be with people who’d rather you weren’t there
Staying home was like being trapped, four or five channels on the television and they were dedicated to soaps, QVC or the Price is Right.
You could read, or talk on the land line phone until your parents got annoyed with you hanging off it and kicked you off it. (Just me?)
That… Was about it. Nothing to do, and Boomer parents whose philosophy was “you got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean.”
So, we went out. We met up with each other constantly. Even as kids, you put a peanut butter sandwich in your pocket and just loafed around for the day looking under rocks and throwing sticks into creeks. As we got older we would just hang out drinking diet cokes and listening to the radio together and flipping through magazines. We were all poor together, so we didn’t have to worry so much about trends or consumption.
When I became an adult (I’m very old now) there was still no Internet really, so we would always be out at house parties or the bar or bowling or some other cheap event.
It was kind of great really, and I never felt lonely or like I didn’t have enough friends. We needed each other more, so we saw each other more.
I’m forever grateful that I grew up long before this digital age.
Less lonely. You had to talk to people.
The opposite actually. We were outside all day playing with friends. Later we organised via Landline and met up to do stuff. Nowadays everyone is “connected” but not “connected”. It’s rather sad.
I find it rather sad op would guess we were more lonely. My dear op, it was awesome connecting with people randomly, organically and in person!
It was a hell of a lot better to be honest.
We had just the right amount of technology in the 90s.
More lonely today for sure. As teens we hung out and talked. Really talked. No staring at phones. I see kids sitting in fast food places, in parks, etc. and they’re ignoring eachother. Or one kid is ignoring the other while scrolling on their phone and the other person is just staring into the abyss. It’s so normal now but when I think about it, it’s so incredibly weird and sad.
I had more social life, i could remember phone numbers, people were on time to meet.
No, the opposite. We got together to talk. People didn’t need to be told to touch grass because we didn’t sit inside by ourselves all day and scroll. When you sat in a room full of people, everyone was talking. Now in a group, everyone is looking down at their phone and you feel like you don’t want to interrupt with talking. In that way, it was better before.
The opposite actually.
Actually no not a bit as we actually talked to each other face to face
It was much, much better. Social media and the internet have siloed people’s social interactions and in my opinion radicalized many as a result. When all you hear is your own echo chamber you don’t learn from the experiences and insights of others. It strips you of empathy.
Yes. Because I am autistic. There is a kind of community online. There was nothing in the past. Nothing. Imagine being a mentallly ill young person in the 1970s.
It was for me. If I didn’t have the internet as a way to make friends and find hobbies, I wouldn’t have the great network of friends I do now. I’d be stuck with townies that I secretly hate.
No – we actually spoke to our neighbors and had interactions with humans – not electronics
People that lived before the internet took me OUT. On my way to plan my funeral now hahaha. And honestly no! I think our connections were deeper and more meaningful. Nothing like getting a letter in the mail.
It was not lonely we played a bit more outside as kids so we were more active but of course outside also has it s own risks. We d just be home before sundown
Much less, actually. We developed social skills and actually used them.
Quite the opposite, somehow it felt like the world was more connected. People would look at each other when talking, instead of looking at the phone, etc.
Granted though, back then there was no reddit, so yes it was worse. Reddit makes my life better these days
There was much less FOMO and loneliness. You didn’t know what anyone else was doing unless they told you, and nobody was posting only the highlight reels that make people envious.
It was so much better. Life was so much more social. As kids we would all play together in the streets. Everyone would come out. Now kids barely leave their houses. Always looking down at a phone or a portable video game. It’s so much more isolated now. No one knows their neighbors anymore. No one talks to each other. Sad.
It was less lonely. I think we assumed the internet, and more accessible technology, would make us better informed and better connected, but it seems to have just made us lazier.
No.. because actually we spent all the time outside playing and hanging around.
Less lonely.
The whole family would jump into the car and descend on a relative. No phone call, no warning, just turn up and see whats happening.
I’d go and knock on friends doors, if they weren’t in I’d have a look in the usual places until I found everyone.
No one cared how anyone looked, and if you did something stupid it was soon forgotten.
We actually spent time with each other and did things together.
I’m going to bite the bullet on this one and go a different way: it’s not lonelier now, it’s just different. In fact, I personally feel way less alone now because not only do I have my IRL friends, but I am able to connect online to people all around the world for hobbies, crafts, my niche interests, and most importantly support groups for an ongoing life struggle that no one in my “real” life has experience with or understands .
As a teacher as well I cannot TELL you the amount of kids with exceptionalities that have found community and friendship online. These types of kids were mercilessly excluded and bullied when I went through school. Now? They have best friends online all over the world relating to their autistic hyper-fixation/ niche interest in manga/ “nerdy” coding interests etc. Online gaming is a godsend for my more shy/ anxiety ridden/ complicated male students. Many have gone on to make online lifelong friendships through games such as COD. These are the same kids who, again when I went through school, would have been the “weird loner”.
Lastly, the amount of advice and encouragement my young female students get from online sources is huge: feminism was introduced to them online from a young age so they know their rights, how to stay safe, the signs of an abusive relationship etc, all very young. It is sad to say but this is very needed. This seems to really help them choose good relationships and positive friendships for themselves IRL. They are all so much more smart and confident and bad-ass than I was at that age!
These are just a few of MANY more examples. As someone who interacts with grade 7-12s on a daily basis I can tell you that in-person friendships are still around in a huge way. Cellphones help them be even closer to each other than ever before (they love to communicate allll day, which I couldn’t stand but they love it and hey I’m a different generation). Are there problems with this huge change in tech? YES OF COURSE! But I just wanted to share that there is a bright side too.
And from my adult perspective, if I walk into a bar I can always find few people, easily, ready to have a chat with a stranger sitting at the bar, so I can’t relate to a few of these comments either. But I appreciate that we all see the world differently.
The comments… are so surprising, and thank you for all the stories, world where you don’t have the today’s technology feels like something I can’t really truly imagine. But I like the thought… Again thank you so much!
Quite the opposite actually. Far far lonelier now with phones and social media.
Def less lonely. I was a teen when i started to use phones for texting and computer for googling. We are social beings and the phone makes us feel social. So before we had to get our fix for social interaction outside. lol
No because the natural inclination was to engage with other people. There was nothing weird or awkward about it.
Most Americans will never know what real community feels like.
When I was a kid, the guy who owned the corner store knew your parents, where you lived, if you didn’t have money for something he’d be like “it’s alright pay me next week!” He knew your name.
Everyone on the block knew each other at least vaguely.
Now everyone keeps to themselves and are strangers assuming the next guy might be a serial killer or some dumb shit.
everywhere you go, you’re just a number, a dollar sign being preyed upon online and offline every Godamn second of the day. No humanization.
It changes people.
It was less lonely, more connective ironically, because human direct interaction wasn’t avoided for the sake of emails, because there were no emails
Remember when people had just gotten an iPhone and showed everyone what it could do? We were like kids on Christmas Day- now we fear being arrested for hating the president and having records in our pockets.
Much much less lonely actually. Talking and meeting up with friends, going outside more…
No. It was more peaceful. Less lonely.
Not at all. I feel like friendships and relationships were deeper and more authentic. Nowadays everything feels very surface level and flaky.
It could just be nostalgia, but I think there’s some truth to the fact that we are overly connected and it has reduced our ability to communicate well.
Less.
It was by far a less lonely, and for the most part people were more considerate, polite and social.
I think that some of our current ills are a direct result of the internet. The darker sides of society were able to congregate across time zones and vast distances to wallow in their sick shit (mainly pedo’s, and racists. There are many others)
Less lonely. Far less lonely.
You have a collect call from “Mom I am ready to be picked up at school.”
I didn’t have a quarter.
We went out and met people face to face and had a great time. We had real friends, not followers. The internet was a late bonus but i think we were all happier and made an effort to meet up in person.
Far less lonely. If you were alone, you were just…alone. Nothing online to check, no fomo. Also, we were far more present when we were in the company of others.
On the contrary, you did everything in person, and you would gather all the time. It was fantastic
It was a lot less lonely back then
We had friends that you talked to, face to face. We’d show up at each other’s house and hang out. If someone was out and passed by your house, they’d just drop in, no warning, you didn’t stop and call them on a pay phone. People talk about having “friends” now. But they live 1000 miles away. One friend would call in the morning and ask, “Whataya doin?” And you made plans then.
More lonely today.
Back then, we got entertainment from each other, we went out every day/night, we met up constantly.
We did have video games, but they were best played together.
No. I think it’s lonelier now. We had relationships that included a lot of face or voice time and didn’t have to ponder the endless supply of images showing us how great everyone else’s lives are and compare them to our own. When screens mediate every encounter, something really gets lost.
It was more local. You would receive information about the world in the newspaper or the nightly news. Your day to day concerns were with your neighbors, friends, and family around you.
Something as simple as buying music or renting a movie was a social thing. You went to the record store with friends and you hung out a long time just going through all the bins. You would plan it out, buy blank cassette tapes, then go make copies for your friends. Also, malls were the place to go to just talk, snack, browse, catch a matinee, and maybe buy something.
I remember being bored at home and going to visit someone else and interact. That was nice. People would answer the door just to see who it was and chat a bit.
Seems my ND peeps are under represented here. The Internet was a revolution for us neurodivergent folk. It allowed us to find people like us and interact. This of us who were outsiders/ostracized because we are different could find friends and even start relationships
Social media has gone too far and the enshittification of the Internet continues but for a while it was a true blessing for some of us who thought we were alone in this world
No, infact it was the opposite
I was still a child when cellphones appeared and then the internet started to become a thing.
The world wasn’t lonelier because you had to actually talk to people. Calling was usually reserved for family and important things. Everything else you had to manage in person.
I appreciate the positives this technology brought to our lives, mainly that it evens out the inequality a bit in the world, gives opportunities to break out from poverty, etc.
On the other hand, people valued each other more and nobody was available all the time unless you lived with them.
It was WAY less lonely. Like exponentially so. It forced everyone to actually be around each other, talk to each other. Dropping in on people was not only normal but expected.
Its sad as hell now compared to the 90s. I was younger then so that’s part of it but it’s way different now. So fake and isolated.
The internet and smart phones are shitty, dangerous things for people. No privacy. Never a break. My boss got Starlink for his fucking yacht so he could have Zoom meetings with us while goofing off in The Bahamas. Seriously, fuck you, dude.
I have given serious thought to getting rid of all this shit, but that’s become wildly impartical, which is nuts wehn you consider nobody had any of this crap until the mid 90s.
Not at all. It was more connected. You had to leave your house for leisure or to socialise and lots of plans were hashed together as you went along because nothing could be really checked beforehand to create your itinerary. It left lots of space for happenstance and adventure. You’d meet and hang out with people you might not ordinarily hang out with. There was way more interaction than now. Life with all our tech comforts is more isolating now.
an example we recently talked about in the trading cards and wargaming communities:
back then when i wanted new stuff i had to get up, dress for public, go to the game store, purchase, eventually making contact with fellow hobbyist
now i see the new stuff on social media order it online while sitting on the toilet
As others have said, far more social with far less obsessive drama in folks’ lives. This is one of the reasons folk my age reminisce so strongly about the 80s and 90s.
Way less in fact.. Go figure.
Definitely less lonely!
Being more connected has made us lonelier.
Having actual friends you actually spend time with and being in the moment.
Also, the shit I did growing up because I knew a camera wasn’t being pointed at me. It was great.
Less lonely. You couldn’t really sit inside all day and it was viewed as normal. Going outside and being with others was normal. But imo since the digital age took over, there’s no reason to. People can get everything they want from the internet now. Entertainment, friends, etc.
It was wayyyyy better actually…much less stressful.
Not at all. It was far better than now.
Its so much lonelier now.
No. In fact maybe less lonely because the mid-intensity contacts always were… “More alive”. It’s a difference, being with other people physically and exchanging messages.
No because we talked to other humans.
Noo way less lonely! People went outside, actually talked with their voice through the phone, and were not constantly staring at a screen!
Way less lonely. Lol 😂
We became more lonelier with social media. Social media eventually will kill our society
It’s way more lonely now
It was LESS lonely as you had to actually talk to people IN PERSON. You had real friendships with real people, and you did real things.
I remember being immensely bored and I realize now that it allowed us to develop a lot of creativity.
Like any addiction there are short term payoffs from the instant dopamine hit that the internet provides that don’t equate to the long term rewards of earning what you desire. We were better off.
Quite the opposite. The world required more human interaction in general. Also, you didn’t have to worry about anything you did being recorded and blasted over social media. Then there’s the rise of main character syndrome, fake influencer crap, etc. Don’t even get me started on cyber bullying.
it felt a lot less fractured, isolating and lonely then. Social media has made people more selfish, narcissistic and oblivious.
No. I’d say It’s more lonely now. We always had something going on usually with a lot of friends and acquaintances.
The current world is the loneliest world there’s ever been.
It was just the opposite. There were lonely people of course but it was significantly less. Instead of sitting in your room playing with the latest game system, you would have to go to an arcade to play the games. You would make friends with others like you.
You would go find people to hang out with. We were outside significantly more.
Even the most awkward people would befriend the other awkward people. Watch Breakfast Club.
We were always out with people. People were the entertainment I t don’t think I ever felt lonely before internet and phones. I definitely feel lonely these days though
Quite the opposite actually. We didn’t live online. We lived offline, which required real live people. So we kept running to new people, making new friends every Friday or Saturday.
Yes, I didn’t have 600+ people following my social media, but I had six really good friends who’d always be ready to go somewhere and do something. And through those six friends I had 60 more friends who’d come too.
Social media killed the social aspect of human life quite effectively imo.
Quite the opposite. For the Internet and cell phones people actually went places and talked face-to-face to people.
Board games, charades, things like that. And you actually knew your neighbors
I am a tech person, I work in tech, I have hobbies in tech, when smartphones were a new thing I was obsessed with them – but I miss that time, not that I would’ve lived long in that world. I was young when having the internet in your pocket was not standard yet, but old enough to remember.
There was more focus. More focus on each other, more deep conversations, more desire to actually meet and spend quality time with each other. We knew our neighbors and talked to them. More focus on certain topics – I would go out and buy the newspapers in the topics that interest me, and read them all the way through. It was an event, it was dedicated time, not just scrolling for 2 minutes on TikTok getting crumbs of information on 52 different topics. It was very different.
And… to me, most importantly, I really miss not being expected to be available and reachable all the time.
Like, seriously, to think that so many people are actually checking when others are online, and then acting jealous or feeling rejected if they don’t get a response even though that person is showing as “green”…
It’s a very different world we live in now.
No, people were forced to talk to each other.
No, we socialized and visited each other more. I was a kid then (born in the mid 80s) so my view might be skewered due to nostalgia. Regardless, I never felt lonely.
No. We often spoke to each other in person,played outside under the sun and wandered around the neighborhoods,…life was actually much less lonely and more colourful. People nowadays seem like have less quality connections and less social skills.