If you think back to your childhood, you probably have lots of nostalgic memories. And chances are, today’s youth will never experience many of them.
1.
“The fact we would go outside and play on the street with other kids without adult supervision until called for dinner.”
2.
“Photos were expensive and more rare, and it took time to even see how they turned out. You took pictures, dropped your film off (e.g., at a photo booth/stand with a person in a grocery store parking lot or at a film processing shop), then waited for the film to be developed and printed (roughly a week). It costs extra to expedite.”
3.
“You couldn’t google things because Google didn’t exist yet.”
—sunbearimon
4.
“That noise the internet made when you were connecting. Was that a programmed noise? Did someone decide that’s what it needs to sound like?”
5.
“Blowing into a video game cartridge to make it work. Kids today would probably think we were performing some kind of tech magic!”
6.
“My kids are five and seven, and they are horrified at the idea of regular TV. Where you just had to watch whatever was on and endure a hurricane of ads. I jest, but only slightly.”
—SushiDaddy89
7.
“You were allowed to smoke cigarettes everywhere: on planes, in movie theaters, offices, hospitals (patients, nurses, doctors). My parents didn’t smoke, but we had ashtrays out because anyone who visited would immediately light up when they came in, including a couple of uncles who would light big cheap cigars. No one ever even asked if they could smoke. It was considered a right to smoke anywhere you wanted to.”
8.
“Making plans to meet friends and having to commit because you didn’t have mobile phones to ask where they were, how far, and if they were still coming.”
—GiantMonkeyBall
9.
“We’d spend all day playing out in the woods with my friends without my parents knowing where we were or being able to contact us.”
10.
“You’d have a three-ring binder of CDs in the car for roadtrips.”
11.
“Consuming music and movies at home involved entire industries and even specific appliances. I remember going to college with a 100-pound crate of record albums and a case of cassette tapes. Also, I had a turntable, a cassette player, a stereo amplifier, and two giant speakers. I wasn’t alone; almost everybody had this. Before VCRs, DVDs, streaming, and cable, the only way to watch a movie on TV was to pick up a copy of TV Guide and look at the listings to see when it might be playing. If it wasn’t playing, you were out of luck.”
12.
“Riding a bicycle without a helmet. Ditto for skiing.”
13.
“Anyone remember how you’d have to memorize phone numbers or write them in a little address book?”
—VeiliHalo
14.
“Hearing the home phone ring and not knowing who it was. Before caller ID, the anticipation was real every time the phone rang! Was it my friend saying he could come over? (YAY!) Was it a teacher calling to discuss my grades with my parents? (Shudder.) Was it just a call for my parents? (Boring!) When that phone rang, it could have been anyone!”
15.
“Roaming the neighborhood bouncing from friend’s house to friend’s house until it got dark. Then, calling your parents from one of their phones saying you couldn’t make it home in time, and they said I could stay the night.”
16.
“If there were more kids than seats in the car, some would ride in the trunk. Child car seats? Never heard of ’em.”
17.
“Just the feeling of being unplugged. I hurt for them in that regard. If you were bullied at school or just had a bad week, you could go home and be in your room or go to a friend’s house. There was no way to get you if you didn’t sign on to AIM. It’s not like they’d call your landline over and over. But now you can be harassed via text and on different apps, and technically, you can turn your phone off, but as soon as you turn it back on, it will all be waiting for you. It just doesn’t end; it follows you everywhere. I feel we have true privacy, and future generations don’t.”
—tiny_claw
18.
“The appreciation for media like movie and game rentals because you only had them for a night, maybe two, and if you’re from a small town, everyone gathering at one house to premiere the newest games! Because the local video store might’ve only gotten one copy, everyone got to share the experience!”
19.
“I was singing “Bananaphone” (Raffi) with my toddler the other day with a banana. He gave me a super weird look…and I realized that a banana isn’t a logical telephone shape to him. A flat rectangle is, but not something that curves. To my son, the mental image of a phone is that of a smartphone; it will never be a rotary phone. Those little differences that separate a generation.”
—mugwump3000
20.
“Calling up your crush on the phone knowing there’s a good chance that one of her parents will answer the landline.”
21.
“Imagine this: You are excited about a new episode of your favorite show — it airs every Wednesday! But this Wednesday, you have soccer/football practice. So, you programmed the VCR to tape, but you forgot to rewind it first so it could tape over LAST week’s episode you already watched. You come home, do homework, eat dinner, turn on the VCR, rewind, and press play. It’s last week’s episode. You cry. There is no YouTube or BBC iPlayer or replays, so you have to look at the paper TV Guide for a rerun. You hope no one ruins it for you at school tomorrow.”
What is something you did as a kid or remember from childhood that younger generations will never experience? Tell us in the comments or in this anonymous form.
