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It is funny you mention people staring at their phones when going out to eat. I guess what is on their phones is much more interesting than who they are sitting with. Odd, but true. I don't go out much anymore because it is kind of depressing compared to my younger days when people actually danced and had fun with each other. All the clubs are closed down now and there is almost no dancing anymore. That is kind of odd, but I guess it is easier to sit and look at a screen instead of moving to the groove. I get it though. What is on the smartphone is more entertaining than most anything else. It is what it is.
I find it odd, too. The thing I most miss is slow dance music. Even in the 80's, clubs would play a few slow ones. That was what sealed the deal for many a man trying to pick up a pretty girl, lol. I remember slow dancing with my now-ex the night we met in the club.
I was thinking today driving back from a doctor's appointment more than an hour away, that traffic is just so much worse today. It seemed like you used to be okay if you just avoided the highways between say 4pm and 6pm. Now people work odd hours, everyone drives their kids to school and back, etc. so now even before 3pm I was getting Waze alerts for heavy traffic ahead and altered my route twice.
]In the days before cell phones I remember begging a dime off my friends or, later, 20 cents, standing at the pay phone in school[/b] calling my mother to pick me up because it had begun snowing hard and the temperature had plummeted, and the phone rang and rang and rang until the recording came on to announce that "my party" wasn't answering.
Later, the answering machine might pick up. If my mom wasn't around she wasn't...
I froze on the way home from school more times than I can count and had constant ear infections.
I recall some "we had it tougher" stuff with fondness but other stuff, I can see the merit in having changed later on (today).
And let's be real, life in the past wasn't magical for everybody. In fact, there were entire groups for whom life was...yeah, pretty routinely awful. Meanwhile, if we got sick we had to pay the doctor cash or we didn't go...women could get touched in the workforce and what were they going to do, narc about it? They'd just get fired and everyone else would close ranks...once teachers were no longer allowed to hit kids, they were still allowed to call them morons in the classroom...some cars didn't have seat belts installed at all, much less anybody using them...and yes, there were fears out the yin-yang. Mothers worried about EVERYTHING and a lot of old wives' tales were rampant.
Here's the thing: I won't recycle the old Greek pre-Christian diatribe (was it Socrates? I can never remember) who complained about "the youth of today," but it's been true for thousands of years and will continue to be. Life changes but so does our perspective and yes, we are going to remember our youth as "better" in certain ways even though if we had our technology and amenities yanked from us now that we're used to them, we'd probably freak out.
In 30 years, we will see a brand-new crop of middle-aged people...who today are making duck face on IG and speaking to one another across the room with their phones...snarking that "kids" don't know how to communicate and X, Y and Z were so much better when they were kids (i.e...in 2018).
We know too much now. We have more things to worry about. Who sat around fifty years ago and worried about getting flesh eating bacteria? Or getting a brain eating ameba from swimming in the local pond? The things we worried about then were more concrete and close to home: a decent paycheck, acne, a roof that didn't leak, a Saturday night date not showing up.
I used to love riding the rollercoaster at the fair. Now if I got on, I'd worry about the damn thing going off the rails and that takes all the fun out of it.
I don't think many people sit around and worry about those things.
I don't think many people sit around and worry about those things.
They do. The news has become mass hysteria, and some of it very real threats, with copycat predators, very biased cable news sources on either side of the extreme, for examples.
OJ Simpson trial--who wasn't watching parts of that? The morning of 9/11--who wasn't watching the tv then? Just go to google news, any morning when you wake up. No waiting for a newspaper to arrive at the front porch. News spreads like wildfire now...and then there's Trump's tweets, and anonymous social media has become a virus in itself. Somebody called the internet a virus, I don't think they were far off, but there's good, and there's bad. People generally behave on citydata, else I wouldn't be here.
I am getting older. Well, not that old, but still in my mid 50's and things seem different, but are they? I remember "the good old days" before computers, social media, hype and more, BUT there might be more than meets the eye here. What do I have left? 20? 30? 40? (doubtful) years left and they are not like my 30's and 40's as far s quality, that I know. Anyway, I am complaining about young people with their smartphones and the fact they can't seem to concentrate, but wait. Is it because I am getting closer to death? Do I want to think it is worse because it will make it easier on ME? Will it be easier because I feel things have gotten worse? I don't know if things have actually gotten worse. Actually, things are SUPER easy these days. Why do I want to look at the future in a negative manner? I think it is because I am older and don't have as many years left as a 20 year old. Am I right?
how have things gotten worse? You haven't explained that. You mentioned computers, which have mede our lives better. Anyone with a computer in the home now has access to a global encyclopedia for endless learning, including youtube demos and documentaries, global music for free, and on and on.
Where's the downside? Kids stuck on their phones? Is that all you've got on the minus side?
We know too much now. We have more things to worry about. Who sat around fifty years ago and worried about getting flesh eating bacteria? Or getting a brain eating ameba from swimming in the local pond? The things we worried about then were more concrete and close to home: a decent paycheck, acne, a roof that didn't leak, a Saturday night date not showing up.
I used to love riding the rollercoaster at the fair. Now if I got on, I'd worry about the damn thing going off the rails and that takes all the fun out of it.
There were roller coaster accidents back then, too. I vaguely recall a news item about one of those Disneyland (Anaheim) teacups injuring a rider, or something.
We know more about what to avoid, to keep ourselves safe, too. We know that teflon coating is carcinogenic. Back in the "good old days", people didn't know that. We know smoking is risky for our health. Women are able to vote, and people of color are still struggling to exercise their right to vote. . We have hybrid cars. Doctors are able to save lives now, through organ transplants.
50 years ago there was the tet offensive, assassination of Martin Luther king, Robert Kennedy assassinated, there were riots across America there was fear and uncertainty , 2 million young men drafted , and major social change. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...mic-180967503/
To claim people didn’t sit around and worry is laughable given the horror of Vietnam ,and the flu pandemic, riots etc
I think things were objectively better in the past, at least for some of the things I care about. For example I prefer a society where most children are born into a family with a married mother and father. Statistically this was much more common when I was young compared to today. Another example, I want to live in a time where the death penalty is used frequently...it was in the past and is rare today, this makes the past far superior to me. If things were going in reverse, for example if state executions were twice as common today than in the past I would celebrate this time period and say how much better today is compared to yesterday.
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. We have hybrid cars. Doctors are able to save lives now, through organ transplants.
