A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
RULES:
RELATED COMMUNITIES:
When the phone rang at home, in our childhood, my sister and I would excitedly race to answer it. Now when my cellphone rings I get an angsty feelings of dread and only look at it 5 minutes after it stops making noise. I also discovered that Nellie Kostychuk (made up name) was caught drunk in the barn during milking time thanks to the good old party line!
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.
Learning stuff from books post full time education. It used to be if you wanted to learn about stuff once you left education you would have to read a book, so picking up a new programming language would be either from courses (assuming work is paying), books (like the O'Reilly ones), and self study.
It required more application from the learner than the internet has enabled as instead of having to read an entire book or at least the relevant chapter, you could just read a few stack overflow questions that were vaguely similar to what you needed to know, then copy and paste the bits that you thought would fit.
AI has made that even quicker, and increased the chance of a wrong or misleading answer, and that assumes you are asking it to explain concepts rather than just getting it to write the code for you and hoping it works.
Its reduced the barrier for entry, but is it actually maintaining output quality as understanding of the topic is almost always not the same.
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.
Actual proper typewriters.
No spellcheck, no always-online license drm, no ai bs forced down your throat, no saving to the fucking cloud.
Just paper, ink, and a machine which hammers the two together with the force of someone who stopped giving a fuck until the bell goes 'ding'.
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.
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.
Turning virtually any high powered device on meant it would have to spin up, power up, cycle, etc. Usually with satisfying whirring, humming, clicking. Nowadays everything boot's up and you might get a chime.
The background noise was pretty high though. Those old circuits and tubes would hum. There was a lot of interference between them, so stereos would click, pop and hum when operating other devices nearby. Things like that.
Socializing in a spontaneous way.
You showed up, no idea who was gonna be there. Genuine unplanned interactions and meet new people.
As far as writing essays in analog times, I do have fond memories of time spent scratching away with a Quicker Clicker. Running out of lead felt like an accomplishment!
This doesn’t directly answer your question, but if any of you are tabletop gamers, check out Tales From the Loop. I’m not in any way affiliated with it, but am GMing a game that does its best to recreate this vibe.
The 'treasure hunting' aspect to discovering music, art, books, and events. Information overload seems to suck the joy out of these things and to shut down enlivened exploration.
I miss getting on the computer and AIM and chatting with friends.
People talked to each other and actually knew how to hold a conversation
No streamers or "influencers"...
Going to video rental stores with film nerd friends