Microblog Memes

I think my (and probably everyone else's) memory was better when you couldn't just look things up instantly.

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.

Riding bikes in circles in the cul de sac

Channel surfing

ASL?

Science fiction dystopias being fictional and set in the "far future".

Common sense. See for example the work of Neil Postman.

People were present, both in person and when they were sat at the computer chatting on AIM or whatever. Now you fight for the ghost of everyone’s attention all the time.

Being a child. My grandparents being alive. Not having to go to work. Being able to just go out and do shit and not be answerable to anyone until I came home.

Maybe if you typed the question as text instead of a screenshot, you might get some folks to accept the question as legitimate.

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.

The computer experience used to happen at home at a desktop. It wasn’t something you could carry around in your pocket

We would meet up on aim and then do our best to meet up in real life.

We had MapQuest when we need to get somewhere. But we had to print that stuff out, and it wasn’t always Fail safe.

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.

Knocking on your friends door and asking if they are coming out to play.

The ability to not be available 24/7 or expected to be. Employers with the advent of cellphones and their ubiquity expect that from you and they can fuck right off.

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.

Not needing an account to do everything.

You paid at the door, you enjoyed your bowling/concert/etc, you didn't get adverts for the rest of your life.

How about when phones did come out and we all had to have the perfect ringtone for everyone? I must have had like 20 different ringtones and then eventually text alerts. We didn't have ten different apps sending us pings. We had call and eventually text.

A lack of cameras everywhere. Plenty of dumb things that happened in my childhood now only live in my memory (and maybe those who were there). There's no video proof of a dumb thing I said or did. I was free to make mistakes.

Garage sales! Holy shit garage sales used to be so fucking awesome. As a 12-15 year old I scored so much computer stuff dirt cheap at garage sales, along with books and music. Just about every Saturday in the summer you could see me with a box precariously balanced or a shopping bag hanging from my bike's handlebars.

Nowadays everything worth more than a couple bucks goes up on FB marketplace and Kijiji, and the only stuff anyone puts in a garage sale is actual garbage that the thrift stores wouldn't even put on the shelf.

I feel like you were more likely to learn things at more than a surface level. You had to learn to operate and maintain more stuff than now. It's basically discouraged with all the disposable items these days. And because you didn't have the device of all entertainment at your hands you were more likely to go just do random stuff. Have random IRL experiences. More likely to get exercise just doing shit.

Greater intentionality in mundane things. Wanted to go somewhere? Mark it on the map. Photos? You only have so much film left. Trying to remember a phone number, address, passcode, note? 9 times out of 10, you'd write it down and carry it with you.

Smartphones are a technological miracle but we lost a lot of intention through the convenience, which has pros and cons.

It can't be overstated how basic tasks or minor inconveniences would turn into multi-day quests.

Tons of movies spin up a whole plot based on a car breaking down and it'll be a week before the part can get there. Or trying to find the one guy that knows about the thing you need to know about, because he has the right book that the library doesnt have. It was an easy way to meet interesting people and learn stuff.

What I don't miss is even looking for a basic thing that's out of stock and calling 7 stores asking "hi, do you have _____ right now? No? OK, thanks." Then calling back the next week.

...actually that's a really good takeaway. Thank you for educating me. ..ananon person...

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.

• there being no expectation of being reachable at any moment

• not being under constant surveillance

• not being so brazenly exploited and having my data harvested at every possible opportunity

• not having the world at your fingertips and the associated feelings of needing to make use of that

Not knowing everything all the time led to more interesting conversations.

We could go outside unsupervised.