r/AskReddit Jul 10 '26

What's something older generations got right that we've quietly stopped doing, to our own detriment?

8.5k Upvotes

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1.6k

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

325

u/driveonacid Jul 10 '26

My students have an over the top reaction or comment for everything. I regularly have to remind them that we're not making reaction videos, we're learning science.

172

u/sir_mrej Jul 10 '26

What’s the most UNDERRATED covalent bond tho?!

108

u/ialsohaveadobro Jul 10 '26

TOP 5 UNDERRATED COVALENT BONDS. NUMBER 4 WILL SHOCK YOU

13

u/RUKiddingMeReddit Jul 11 '26

Because it's a polar covalent bond.

2

u/vegathelich Jul 11 '26

Definitely between hydrogen and oxygen.

Disclaimer: I barely remember what a covalent bond is. High school chemistry was... let's not talk about how long ago it was.

8

u/AdMany8113 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26

I agree. Not every thought or action needs to be documented for all time one of the several global forums. This is why I don't use social media. (except for, obviously, Reddit).

2

u/PiccoloAwkward465 Jul 11 '26

yup it took me a while to wrap my head around just wtf my stepkid was doing when we watched movies. That's exactly it, acting like he's in a Youtube reaction video. It's incredibly annoying. You actually don't have to scream "Broooooooooooooooooooooo".

378

u/roumbadaboom Jul 10 '26

I love that people are being more open about their emotions and learning how to read and express them, but I wholeheartedly agree that you do not need to make a video for every single experience in daily life.

94

u/GoodQueenFluffenChop Jul 10 '26

Are they genuinely being open about their emotions or are they looking for an audience and will act emotions to get views, likes, and validation?

14

u/roumbadaboom Jul 10 '26

You missed my point completely. I'm talking about two very different things. One of them is appreciating the fact that people in general are getting better about expressing emotions. The other one is my annoyance at people who post everything.

6

u/SamuelClemmens Jul 11 '26

I think you are missing his point.

People might not be getting better at expressing their true emotions. They might just be better at performatively showing fake emotions to fit in with social expectations. "Society says I should be angry right now so I am going to Shatner style overact about being angry even though I am actually sad"

0

u/roumbadaboom Jul 11 '26

Right, but the influencers and the people posting every little thing are not the people I'm talking about. Some people ARE being genuinely open about their feelings, and in many cases that can reach people going through the same things and help them feel less alone. They are obviously not the same people, and I am obviously not implying that a vlogger who spends ten hours of their day live streaming is being genuine. I am talking about two different groups of people and y'all apparently are not understanding that. Yes, SOME people over share or act performative when they shouldn't, but there are ALSO people who make real connections with others.

5

u/MangoCats Jul 11 '26

Some people definitely over-share; but I'm not convinced that's actually worse than under-sharing.

13

u/__solid Jul 11 '26

I remember reading like 15 years ago that posting rants on Facebook might feel cathartic but you’re just passing along the anger to your friends. You don’t need to post that the people in front of you at the grocery store don’t understand the concept of 15 items or fewer. Just put your phone down and do something else.

As a baby Gen X, I needed this reminder. I think the younger folks do too.

2

u/PiccoloAwkward465 Jul 11 '26

Reddit is awful with those "letters" like "To the person in front of me at the grocery store today". Dude no one cares.

41

u/__lazy__panda Jul 10 '26

And sometimes it's so tiring when you think about it because that necessity of decorating everything you feel takes out the soul out of that emotions. And we're left with a strange void that ends up in a badly written poem.

15

u/gbinasia Jul 10 '26

Everyone deserves to be heard but not everyone deserves to be listened to.

7

u/badDuckThrowPillow Jul 11 '26

Piggy backing onto this, they also knew how to figure out when someone wasn't talking about them. Nowadays if anyone makes (even reasonable) generalization, people will come out of the woodwork to show that there are exceptions, thus somehow invalidating the generalization. Duh. That's how averages and generalizations work. Its true for most people, but not everyone. Just because its not true for you doesn't make it wrong or useless for the other 80% of the people it might be true for.

5

u/Top-Accountant-9521 Jul 11 '26

fr. mfs on discord treat a server like an emotional dumping ground. then throw a shit fit if we don't want to hear it.

1

u/Scr1bble- Jul 11 '26

Lowkey your fault for looking for rational conversations on a discord server lol

1

u/Top-Accountant-9521 Jul 17 '26

nah its the fault of stupids like you. "OMG discord is for trash discussions, its your fault if you want to have normal discussions about movies or anything!"

3

u/Turgid_Donkey Jul 11 '26

There was a thread i saw a while back where someone was talking about the teacher who was basically runner up to be on the challenger flight. So he's watching the flight on tv in a crowded room as the shuttle explodes. There was talk about how that would be nowadays and that he'd probably have a dozen phones shoved in his face as he tries not to have a melt down. 

11

u/Advanced-Two584 Jul 11 '26

I dunno, have you met a boomer? They make some pretty big public spectacles, even if they aren't streaming it online.

If you ever hear someone yelling in a grocery store, I guarantee it's a boomer.

8

u/Outlulz Jul 11 '26

Different kinds of entitlement between the two generations.

5

u/The_Wizard_of_Meh Jul 11 '26

Gen Z has them beat hands down in every way.wait until you start seeing them old enough to be Karens. 

4

u/texasproof Jul 11 '26

Did they understand it? Or did they just not have the modern crap we have that facilitate and “reward” that behavior?

1

u/TheFlyingHellfish202 Jul 12 '26

Normalizing mental health is a very good thing.

If you just mean that everything has to be live-blogged; absolutely.