Microblog Memes

I miss the higher level of engagement and interactions with another person or group when socializing.

Now that everyone has a computer in their pocket, they have an alternative (and sometimes primary) source to engage with during social interactions and events. Now instead of using social skills to change, deepen, or otherwise adjust conversation and engagement on an individual or group level, many people opt out and zone out on their phones instead.

It started with texting. I noticed that at parties or small group interactions, people would oscillate between interacting with the group and texting others either in attendance or not, whichever entertained/engaged them the most. Suddenly instead of parties being full of people who were there to be there and interact with others there, they became full of people who were there until the next exciting thing flashed on their screens and they would just leave without even really being there anyway.

What I’m saying is that people used to be engaged and dedicated in a more wholistic way when socializing, and I miss that. I hate that texting others while you have someone right in front of you that you agreed to spend time with is normal. I hate that I can’t trust anyone to value my time as much as I do theirs, and that apparently I’m taking it too seriously if I do.

My son is about to be 13, doesnt have his own phone, hardly plays video games, and often doesnt watch Tv instead chooses to play outside.

He finally found a kid in the neighborhood who also isnt screen addicted and its so nice to see them play. Shortly after school hours, you see either my son or the other kid start circling on their bike waiting for the other kid to come out. Then they play outdoors for hours. They come home from their neighborhood adventures sometimes covered in mud, with new scrapes and out of breath from running and playing. I love it! I love to hear them laughing and enjoying their time, I love that they are learning social skills, figuring out who they are, while not comparing themselves to what they see on the internet. It's fantastic.

Recently a teacher was taken aback when said he didnt have a phone (he uses mine to text friends) and I scoffed a bit inside with pride. My kid has healthy self esteeme and makes friends everywhere he goes. It brings me a lot of joy to see him thrive in this way, hes begining to learn independence and idk, I love it for him.

Not linked directly to the tech, but generally the thing I miss the most was the optimism. In the 90s people were excited for the future. Crime was trending down, the economy was doing well, the government was paying down the debt, the internet was new and full of wonder. In general there was a push for you to be whatever you wanted to be no matter who you were. The beginning of a lot of breaking down and removing stereotypes and gender norms.

Some of this seems to have reversed, most of it ended on 9/11/2001. That attack killed a lot of the optimism and things line the PATRIOT ACT really put us on the dystopian track we find ourselves on now. Also a lot of the economic boom were from the deregulation that would cause massive problems later...

So, yeah generally I miss the optimism we had.

Everything. The world had so much before we started spending our present in phones. I had time for art and hobbies and writing. I did so much exploration and sports and socializing. Road trips, and events, and helping others. Things were memorable.

Now is more like an addiction. The time goes but I’m never sure where it went. I barely have time to sleep, much less any other activities

Lack of expectation that wherever I am and whatever I do anyone can just call me to get instant answer.

Also - less societal control. Kids nowadays can't go anywhere in public without their parents. They either get kicked out, have police sicced at them, or spaces where anyone can hang out for free are regularly erased. Case in point - even online spaces are now slowly closed from non-adults. In my youth one could go to any of the public spaces and hang out there for free with nobody troubling you.

World now feels like it's strongly geared towards raising slaves - always available, always under control, even rest seems to be paywalled.

Wasn't much different for me. I usually walked around reading a mass market paperback book instead of a cell phone just took up more pocket space. I grew up in the 90's so I still had portable gaming like the Gameboy advance too. Thr one I had before that, the nomad was... let's just say NOT as portable. Oh. And my Walkman CD player. Nowadays I just have it all on one device.... my legion go. I use my cell phone exclusively for social media which I had ro go to my computer for, use slow as he'll 56k dial up internet, and browse all message boards and chat rooms for that online social aspect.

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.

Being inaccessible was a hidden pleasure. Just be where you are

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.

Those before what? For you it feels likethere was a “before" and a now, but for me (54 years old) it feels like continuity. So many people keep asking this question, or promoting some pseudo “better before” era, that I’m starting to wonder if the world didn’t just wake up dumb.When cellphones didn’t exist, the idea of a cellphone‑based world didn’t even occur to us...except in science fiction. Now that I have a smartphone, I’m just glad I can video‑call my kid, buy groceries online while I’m on the road, and get home to cook. There’s nothing “better” or “worse.” Rude people always existed. In my time, you’d walk into a room, say hello, and there was always that one guy who wouldn’t even lift his eyes from his sports magazine.

Hanging out with my friends in deep parts of forest near the small town we all grew up in

We would bike out past the highway with backpacks, and make little shelters and a fire ....and just be lads...throw stuff, sometimes at each other, see who could lift the biggest rock, or jump the widest part of the stream, fish, make a lean-to...we made a neat little spot over a few years

we experienced being totally and completely lost once then, which was a very humbling and powerful experience I can still remember the realization of total silence and total loss of sense of direction....but, we didnt panic, stayed together found our way home

We also played a ton of baseball w tennis balls during the summer in a park that was kinda in between everyone's homes - tennis balls were fun cause they didnt hurt you if you got beaned , or break peoples wnidows around the park, and also dont travel very far, so make for some fun pop-up fly balls

good times

Climbing trees

Being on holiday really felt like you were in a far away place, cut off from everything familiar. Today, no matter where you go on the planet, everything is kinda the same because you bring your digital environment with you.

my mum. definitely my mum

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!

Having an attention span. I used to be able to sit with a book and read for hours in silence. Now I don’t like when it’s too quiet. And if I play music to counteract that my brain also can’t read the same thing for more than a paragraph because scrolling through Reddit has made it so I don’t have the patience for anything and I want quick, digestible pieces. Watching movies and tv shows is also terrible because I’m constantly checking my phone so I miss a lot of important details. I fully acknowledge I have a phone addiction.

Privacy.

Just the fact that many people do not realize that looking at your phone constantly when you are out with others shows no manners is infuriating, everybody actually acts like they want to escape reality, and that alone says a lot about what our world have come to, I mean... It's not the phones that are more interesting and everything in it, it's the people who are not and the world around them which makes them behave that way and it's sad.

Written from my stream of consciousness, edited for grammar:

The simplest answer is that we were able to do dumb things and make dumb choices without it becoming a viral moment that haunted us.

The things that kids in high school did that would be life-shattering now were little more than rumors to most kids in the school. There was no video that circulated, no major social media that allowed the school to sit in judgment of whatever was happening. The thing happened, people talked about it for a few weeks, and aside from a handful of mean people, everyone moved on.

I'm of the Jackass generation, so we had our fill of stupid. We had our fill of online danger too, but there was less permanence to the choices we made in the moment most of the time. We were free to be stupid, and being stupid is a part of growing up that we've forgotten.

Online was different, it was better. I'll die on that hill. We communicated with each other instead of trying to win a popularity contest. Some of the old viral videos were just made to test software and goof off. It was real and human in a way that has been replaced by commercialization. There was stuff you shouldn't see. There were people you shouldn't talk to. But the majority of digital spaces and forums were about communication, debate, and understanding. Yes, there was a lot of degenerate content, but those spaces were relegated to the darker corners of the internet.

I learned more about world history, labor history, sociology, and finance than I had ever learned in high school. Every instance of learning came with the ability to ask questions, and those questions got answered thoroughly, sometimes with sources. It wasn't a game to find the perfect pun or insult. The top-rated comment was the one most people agreed with or appreciated.

I know it isn't the main part of the question, but I honestly blame Tucker Max for the start of the downfall. In his autobiographical book, he walked through a lot of early social engineering and manipulations that I came to see as commonplace online.

I know this is long for the modern internet. It wasn't for my internet. This was about cell phones. My mistake, but then again, the modern internet is experienced through the cell phone. We had to use a computer in the living room or go to a friend's house and access the internet when everyone was asleep. That way we didn't mess with the phone line.

We had walkie-talkies to keep in touch with family in case of emergencies. Sleepovers weren't about scrolling on phones and showing each other videos. We did do that. We used the computer to look at YouTube videos, but we also walked around at night when we shouldn't have, played video games until dawn, and watched Real Sex (the show) on TV. Things were just a little bit harder, so you had to work a little to get anything.

Something else, no matter what you were doing or where you went, you didn't just take a walkie-talkie. You had your radio, then a Walkman, then an MP3 player. You brought your Magic or Pokémon cards to trade. Maybe you would need your camera or a copy of Game Informer, or a cheat code book, etc. Every time you went out, you had to decide what was important to bring, what options you wanted for playing and experiencing things together with your friends.

We were more able to be bored, and that made us more able to be creative, or stupid, if we're bringing it full circle.

I know this seems long, but this post is almost standard for some writing from back then, online at least.

No streamers or "influencers"...

Going to video rental stores with film nerd friends

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.

People talked to each other and actually knew how to hold a conversation