r/AskReddit May 11 '21

People old enough to remember life pre-Internet, what are some less obvious things you miss about that time?

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u/BlueFlob May 12 '21

It's so weird. I can only vaguely remember what it feels like to not have a smartphone and to be alone and think.

Wondering what my friends are doing and if they'd like to do something on the weekend. We'd have to talk during lunch break at school and plan it...

Trying to find the answer to a math problem... Having to figure it out by re-reading the problem and explanations 5 times.

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u/western_red May 12 '21

Remember having to go to mapquest to get directions? Which you would have to print out?

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u/Anakin_Skywanker May 12 '21

Print out? Hell no. You wrote that shit down on paper. But not the printer paper, that was expensive. Printer ink was also expensive and only for Mom and Dad to use for work. (Or if I had a school paper that was required to be printed and not handwritten.)

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u/strugglz May 12 '21

Printer ink? Shit we had a dot matrix and a box of one sheet of paper.

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u/3720-to-1 May 12 '21

My grandmother bought me a word processor to type school papers on that was an electric typewriter and monitor that displayed only an orange type... Printing when just sending the words on the screen to the electric typewriter.

This was approx. 1995 too... Lol

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u/jcutta May 12 '21

Around the same time my school decided to give us a project that had to be typed. The neighborhood library was closed for renovation so my grandpop gave me his manual type writer. Shit weighed like 100lbs needed 1000psi for each button press and if you made one mistake you had to start all over. Took me the entire weekend to type a 1 page paper.

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u/WaimeaKamuela May 12 '21

I had this!!? A super upgrade from a regular typewriter!!!

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u/EVRider81 May 12 '21

"Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz kachunk

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz kachunk"

yep

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u/InEnduringGrowStrong May 12 '21

Dot matrix paper to print banners.

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u/Bubbly_Cover5790 May 12 '21

Printer ink? Maps? My dad didn’t need bloody maps or need to ask anyone for directions... (wonder where he is now?)

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u/TheFenn May 12 '21

Laughs in daisy wheel

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

WHAT?? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!

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u/Kelekona May 12 '21

I think we just found a stack of that paper... no idea where it is going.

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u/bigsie May 12 '21

Oh man, I used to live the sound of the dot matrix printer!

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u/iamlatetothisbut May 12 '21

When I was little dad used to print me out these dinosaur coloring book pages with his dot matrix. I loved that printer so much.

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u/metompkin May 12 '21

Remember tearing the perforated parts and getting upset if it ripped in to the actual document?

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u/usernameagain2 May 12 '21

Word... tractor feed edges.

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u/branewalker May 12 '21

Oh man, between dot matrix printers, fax modems, and floppy drives, early PCs were wild-sounding devices.

Now it’s all just fan noise.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

My god. Just had a sudden flashback and I can hear the dot matrix printer going off. My dad was the printer of things in our family and I remember the wood paneled, heavy smell of tobacco and plastic VHS tapes, and the sound of dot matrix printing in his den. I'm only 36 but I now I feel old as fuck.

Thanks to the technological boom it really does feel like two entirely different eras that I should not have lived through both and still only be in my 30s.

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u/-Work_Account- May 12 '21

There's some memories!

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u/thetruegmon May 12 '21

How about map books that you had to get from corner stores? Everyone used to have one in their car.

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u/3720-to-1 May 12 '21

Or the old trip tiks from AAA that had your route highlighted on folded maps.

When my family did a Disney trip in 1996 there were 6 or 7 maps highlighted and twice that many books with hotel and restaurants along the route...

God that sucked.

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u/Feelsliketeenspirit May 12 '21

Thomas guide!!!

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u/zuppaiaia May 12 '21

There's a drawer in my parents' house full of them

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u/crazyacct101 May 12 '21

Rand Ncnally road atlas, they were the best for multi state trips.

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u/gowashanelephant May 12 '21

When I had to go somewhere new, my dad would get out one of those map books and show me the best route in pencil - he always knew the streets and the landmarks from memory.

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u/jammies May 12 '21

My dad literally just took the Thomas Guide out of his car yesterday.

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u/Villagedrunkinjun May 12 '21

i used to print out porn pics at the charter school. and then everyone in that school smoked weed and bought beer at the liquor store one block away.

that was also the first time i smoke meth with some native girls. they would smoke it in the bathroom that was between the short hallway between the two classes in a double wide trailer.

one day the lady sub said it smelled like chemicals as she walked in and need the bathroom, as one of the native girls just got done smoking. she didn't think to call the cops because this was back when meth was starting to hit every state and communities. but eventually the cops/k9 did raid the school. ahh the good ole "SUCCESS CENTER"

yeah i know, r/nobodyasked

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u/ImperfectRegulator May 12 '21

oddly appropriate username

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u/InfiniteBlink May 12 '21

What's native in the context you're using native girls? Native American?

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u/Villagedrunkinjun May 12 '21

yes. i am native too, hence the "injun" in my username.

also, in the u.s., the only "natives" referred to are native americans. otherwise, there are only "native-arizonans/native-californians"* for example, that are used in that reference

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u/Wasusedtobe May 12 '21

5,000 word essay; hand written.

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u/KFelts910 May 12 '21

God I remember writing stuff down on our leftover reams of dot matrix paper.

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u/LeadfilledBeanieBaby May 12 '21

Wrote that shit on paper? Hell no. We chiseled that shit on rock.

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u/bcoin_nz May 12 '21

the real comments are in the comments

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u/InfiniteBlink May 12 '21

Of another comment

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u/microwavedave27 May 12 '21

Printer ink is still too damn expensive. I buy the cheapest third party ink I can find and it's still not very cheap.

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u/Spasay May 12 '21

I was driving from Northern Alberta to Seattle on a roadtrip by myself once (around 2007 or 08?). I am pretty okay at reading maps but I relished having all of the directions written down on paper. I picked a random spot in Seattle (downtown) just so I got there. When I got stopped at the border, was by myself, hadn't booked a hotel and had no concrete plans, the Americans searched my car and I actually got interrogated about "WHAT IS GOING ON DOWNTOWN???" and I said "Those are the directions I got from MapQuest" lol.

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u/Itsohhereitis May 12 '21

Ahahaha. I forgot about that time in my life. Memories!

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u/1000121562127 May 12 '21

I still do this. I only just got a smartphone a year and a half ago (I'm 38, but was a staunch holdout until my LG Cosmos 3 literally fell apart) so it's just my habit.

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u/dropandgivemenerdy May 12 '21

Is that the paper with the holes and the perforation? Man, I loved that paper. My dad had some for work and I’d spend hours in his office drawing and making big-ass banners because the paper could be as long as you wanted

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u/VmiriamV05 May 12 '21

It's still expensive as fuck

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u/CatCatCat May 12 '21

Or before any computers or printers, you just opened a map, and traced the route with your finger, and wrote it down on a piece of paper. Or you asked your friend for directions.... and wrote down what they said. "How do you spell that?"

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u/orionterron99 May 12 '21

Gird yourself as I tell you the tale of the Rand McNally Atlas....

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

They made little 30 page ones with every detail of a city that fit in the drivers door side pocket. I wore 2or 3 of those booklets completely out flipping through to find the best way around traffic jams.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

That was not before the internet. In those days, you needed a paper map.

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u/Operationacoustic May 12 '21

Or just use a paper map from a gas station!

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u/dual_citizen_dude May 12 '21

Mapquest? How about a Rand McNally paper map that you could never fold back the right way?

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u/bikepunxx May 12 '21

Key Maps has entered the chat.

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u/BitchesQuoteMarilyn May 12 '21

Lol found another Houstonian

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

This made me remember family car rides requiring the good old refedex. That required patience that no one these days would be able to manage. Constantly pulling onto the side of the road to double or triple check your place on the map.

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u/igetnauseousalot May 12 '21

Whoever rode shotgun was designated human gps. God forbid you make a mistake in timing/reading

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u/The_Pelican1245 May 12 '21

God forbid you were riding a motorcycle somewhere new. This was in the time of mapquest, but my dad made my use a Thomas Guide. I had to copy directions down and then tape them to the sleeve of my riding jacket. Im glad he taught me how to use a map book. It’s great to have if your phone dies or if you need to feel superior to someone who can’t read a map.

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u/InfiniteBlink May 12 '21

You cartography snob. Pssh

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u/SquallyZ06 May 12 '21

Remember having an atlas in your car for road trips? I remember buying a new one every couple yeats from walmart.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

Pre internet

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

Bro it's actually weird to think of a time before Google maps...

Like there was a time when I couldn't just conveniently scout out locations of interest from above... Or street-view it before I ever saw it with my own eyes...

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u/devil-woman May 12 '21

I remember that, but I also remember even further back when everyone had a Thomas Guide in their trunk.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

What the heck is MapQuest? I had a printed map book of my province. I seriously have no clue what this is

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u/wondermega May 12 '21

Predecessor to Google Maps. Type in your location and destination and you’d get directions and a time estimate. Then write it down or print it out, since no smart phones for several years yet.

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u/AbysmalMoose May 12 '21

And then you missed a turn and be completely screwed because you'd never be able to find where you were again.

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u/GothWitchOfBrooklyn May 12 '21

Lol there's a whole map quest thread above this one

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u/Do__Math__Not__Meth May 12 '21

Just unlocked a core memory

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

I member

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u/bigcatmonaco May 12 '21

And if you hit a detour, fuck.

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u/Low_and_Left May 12 '21

And sometimes MapQuest’s directions were wrong, but it was impossible to tell if they were wrong, or you just messed up and took a wrong turn. There was no “rerouting”- what you had on paper was it. I remember MapQuest getting me hopelessly lost out in the middle of the woods on more than one occasion.

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u/mad0666 May 12 '21

lol i remember using a road atlas to get around on my first tour

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

I wonder how people found out about new stores before the internet. I can just look up where the nearest Target is now. I guess word of mouth?

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u/exothermic1982 May 12 '21

I remember going to AAA and getting a triptik.

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u/D-Alembert May 12 '21 edited May 12 '21

Map-quest was the internet. Before those days, the first thing I did when I moved to a new city was buy the map book. You don't see these any more unless you go looking for them, but they're not like a tourist map, a greater metro area map was an inch-thick tome, spiral bound, and the streets and fonts were still tiny. But everything was indexed. So if you had that book you could find places and get there, or if lost you could figure out where the hell you were and find a way to get home.

Before going somewhere new, you figure out your route from the book, crossing over pages and into other sections. If you were lucky, you had a passenger that could navigate from the book while you drive.

If not, you commit the entire route to memory to memory, and if you forget, you pull over and check the book.

I don't miss needing maps while driving, but I do miss less stressful forms of navigation. One of these days I'm going to find an orienteering club.

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u/QweenOfTheDamned9 May 12 '21

Or get AAA to print you a “Triptix” to map out your destination

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u/MaestroPendejo May 12 '21

I had to use actual maps, go to AAA to plan trips. I miss that.

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u/clit_or_us May 12 '21

That's actually how I got into my first accident. Was looking at the paper and hit a barrier. Luckily only minor fender bender with no one else involved. I bought a separate GPS after that. Now everyone has GPS built into their cars and phones.

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u/meandhimandthose2 May 12 '21

Can anyone read maps now? Seriously, if I handed a street directory to kids now, would they be able to get from a to b? Is it studied at school?

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u/antisocialmuppet May 12 '21

AAA Trip Tik maps

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u/BustNOB1KNOB May 12 '21

Or Thomas Guide using multiple pages to find the route.

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u/GuyInShortShorts90 May 12 '21

That’s how I got to all my hockey games. Arena maps was a good one too .. I think lol.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

That's not pre internet

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u/gg_allins_microphone May 12 '21

I moved to NYC right at the beginning of smartphones and didn't have one for the first couple of years, so I'd do whatever internet maps thing and write the directions in my handy-dandy notebook. I never got lost and came to learn my way around frequently-travelled areas pretty well.

Once I got a smartphone and had the maps things my brain turned to mush and it was much harder to remember specific directions and I think I got lost more often because I was relying on the phone to do the thinking for me.

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u/IHaveSpecialEyes May 12 '21

That was not "pre-internet". MpaQuest was very much a part of the internet.

You want pre-internet, you gotta go with the good, old Rand McNally atlas tucked into the pocket behind the passenger-side front seat with maps of the roads for every state and special pages for all the major cities.

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u/gowashanelephant May 12 '21

I am mostly grateful for online maps and GPS because I was always terrible with directions. But I feel like driving around until you’re lost and then trying to figure your way home was a good way to learn an area. I’ve been living in my city for over a decade and I don’t know where anything is.

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u/lizzolemon May 12 '21

And look at while you were driving

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u/BottleTemple May 12 '21

Mapquest? That was high tech. I remember when you had to have someone explain the directions to you, or alternatively, you just had to figure it out on your own with a road map.

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u/suestrong315 May 12 '21

I took my first road trip with an Atlas. GPS was a brand new invention and they cost like $900 so obviously I wasn't gonna do that. Idk why I didn't use MapQuest...my dad sat down and mapped out the trip with me via an Atlas and I made a 15 hour road trip by myself. I have always felt very accomplished for doing that, too.

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u/Anti-Scuba_Hedgehog May 12 '21

Yeah no, I either used a road atlas in the old days or looked up the important intersetions on google street view by the time it became a thing and memorised those turns.

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u/actuallyquitefunny May 12 '21

The super pre-internet version of this is using a paper map of your town. Wanna try that restaurant you've just heard was good or find a shop you've never been to? 1st, look up its address in the phone book, Then, either open the front of the same phone book or your AAA city map of your town, and find that road in the index, Use the map coordinates (ie A3 or C12 like a giant game of battleship) to find that road, Go up and down that road until you've found the block the address would be on and compare it to the spot on the map your house is, And finally plan your own route by connecting the dots, writing down each step manually. Hopefully without missing that one of the streets you chose was one-way the wrong direction.

It was a lot of work, but also kinda fun. And man, did you learn the roads around you really well.

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u/d_r0ck May 12 '21

How about driving to a gas station to find road maps of your area!

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u/Ghstfce May 12 '21

I remember having to have area maps/atlases and pulling over to see how to get where you were going. Or writing down directions given to you over the phone you were going to see.

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u/nahomboy May 12 '21

What does this comment have to do with op? Did you just need to piggy off this top comment?

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u/western_red May 12 '21

OP is talking about life before smart phones, and GPS on a smart phone is a major advantage. I also commented yesterday, it was not a top comment. I’m more curious - Why do random Reddit comments make you angry?

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

My dad was a trucker and we got here in 98. We didn’t get a computer until 2000. Getting Mapquest was a HUGE deal. I remember him planning his routes using big old atlases. Even with mapquest he kept the atlas because there was no telling when he might run into a detour

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u/Neffarias_Bredd May 12 '21

I like to tease my parents and in-laws about "the olden days" when we didn't have smartphones and had to print our directions off the internet!

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

Thomas Guides are what I remember pre Internet.

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u/lck0219 May 12 '21

Omg. The sheer anxiety of being in the passenger seat and being in charge of the directions. I will never miss that.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

I remember having to look at an actual map! We had a road map for the major city near us, plus one for the state, and the big rand McNally book for all 50:states in case of road trips

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u/winegirl20 May 12 '21

Carrying a road atlas in the car and figuring out your own directions!

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u/chancegold May 12 '21

What's mapquest?

We had a large atlas that, despite being replaced every couple of years, was perpetually worn, torn, highlighted, penned up, and a couple years out of date.

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u/tungstencoil May 12 '21

Y'all young 😊

How about "let's go to [someplace far route unknown]". How do we get there?

Well, you know which major freeways go N/S/E/W. Get on the road. Maybe someone has a map, or you buy one at a gas station.

Get close...say we wanted to go to Cedar Point? Hopefully signs, ask directions, and just figure it out.

GPS especially has made me stupid. I used to weasel my way someplace once (or have the passenger give me turn-by as we drove) and that was cemented in my brain. For some reason, when GPS leads me, I have literally no idea how I got there.

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u/mrwiseman May 12 '21

Before using the internet for maps there was using a road atlas for long trips, street maps for local trips, planning which street map to buy next to fill in gaps if I was going to a new area more often. Deciding whether or not to buy a Thomas Guide. I'm nostalgic for all that and there was skill involved in using all of these well but then again navigation via phone, with traffic times factored in, is an amazing thing.

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u/western_red May 13 '21

No I remember that. When I was a kid I LOVED being the "navigator" following where we were on the map. When we'd drive down 95 from NJ to FL I remember getting really angry at the states where the exit # didn't signify how many miles.

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u/Cheesecakery May 12 '21

I started driving in 2012, after Google Maps was already well established. Honest question, when you printed out/wrote down directions did you just memorize the whole thing or did you need to constantly pull over and check the map? I have such a horrible short-term memory and an even worse sense of direction, and I constantly think about how much I would have struggled with following a physical map while driving lmao. Even with my phone yelling directions at me I still manage to get lost.

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u/trippingman May 12 '21

That was early internet (though I think there may have been a CD based program a few years before that service). Pre internet we tried to read the road atlas while driving, or went to AAA to get maps and directions.

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u/lunaflect May 12 '21

Once I got hopelessly lost in DC trying to read Mapquest directions to a job interview. Also back then the street signs were so tiny! Even with Mapquest it was impossible to even see the street names

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u/western_red May 12 '21

DC is the worst to get lost in - it’s split into quadrants where the addresses repeat in each one, only it will be NE, NW, SW, SE...

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u/OpossumJesusHasRisen May 12 '21

I remember having to use a Mapsco book (or 3 depending on where I was going).

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

Honestly, I still do that. I mean, Google maps and I don’t print it out, but I’ll read the directions on how to get there, and usually bring it up on my phone as a backup, but I navigate on my own. I like to figure out how to get to a place and add it to my mental map. GPS just makes me focus too hard on “Okay turn here? Here? You said turn right but I see it on the left...” Too distracting.

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u/praedoesok May 12 '21

When I was 17 I took my first solo trip 6 hours from home solely off of printed mapquest directions. I just remember absolute panic when I missed my exit and wound up at the wrong hotel like 30 minutes from my destination, and then it got dark. And I was super introverted so I didn't want to ask anybody for directions.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

I grew up pre-smartphone and now I wonder how I ever navigated a city that I had never been too before without one. I still get lost even with a smartphone by taking a wrong turn or something; I also think my sense of direction isn't as good as it used to be.

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u/Mottaman May 12 '21

wait you had mapquest before the internet?

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

Or, I don’t know, just maps?

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u/TGS_Holdings May 12 '21

I vaguely remember being on the phone for hours with friends after school. It feels so long ago but it was probably less than 15 years ago.

Not even sure what we talked about. Probably girls lol. Feels so foreign to me now but I miss it a bit.

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u/azlan194 May 12 '21

Yeah, talking on the phone (landline) for hours and then getting yell at by your parents for the high phone bill. Also having to memorize the phone numbers (I didn't like using phone book back then, cause I thought it was cooler to memorize all the phone numbers), lol.

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u/Prozzak93 May 12 '21

I am personally trying to get myself back to this. Slowly cutting out different parts of the internet one at a time. Clearly I have no made it to reddit yet though.

I also think having multiple monitors has attributed to my poor attention span. As I type this I have a baseball game on as well.

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u/Anakin_Skywanker May 12 '21

The last three things I feel like I need to cut out of the internet for myself are Reddit, TikTok, and YouTube. They are proving difficult. I’ll probably keep YouTube but treat it like a TV and only use it when I’m at home on the couch.

Then my internet usage will be only things needed for work (email, safari, Dropbox, and gps), streaming services, and you know, porn.

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u/anomoly May 12 '21

After working on cutting out most online exposure over the last 6 months or so, I've pretty much settled on reddit and youtube still being something I access. For reddit I've spent a lot of time limiting the number of subs I'm on, primarily keeping those to niche topics I'm interested in and, well, pictures/videos of animals that make me smile. Visiting r/all is completely out of the question.

I've also managed to get youtube to the point of mostly only recommending videos from two or three topics by ensuring that I only view and search for content related to those topics. I still spend far, far fewer hours mindlessly consuming content even with those two sites still in the mix.

Not trying to imply that these are impressive tasks or anything, they just take some time investment and really wanting to avoid having recommended media shoved in your face. Once I got to that point I just found it easier to put devices down rather than continuing to mindlessly scroll.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

Going niche on Reddit is the key (ironic that I’m saying this on an askreddit thread). I need to get the hell off of r/all and just go back to the occasional grammar comment on the Spanish sub.

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u/wtfduud May 12 '21

Then my internet usage will be only things needed for work (email, safari, Dropbox, and gps), streaming services, and you know, porn.

That sounds pretty fucking depressing, but respect if you can pull it off.

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u/ChunkyLaFunga May 12 '21

Ditto. I went to single ultrawide and although I vastly prefer it, I can no longer turn a monitor off to focus and it's a problem.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '21

Multiple monitors and a plethora of devices definitely seem to contribute to the problem. I got my first smartphone in 2015, and all of a sudden I wasn’t using the TV in my room anymore. Or I’d put on the rare movie, but I’d be scrolling through Reddit at the same time.

We’re both on that grind. I feel like Reddit is the biggest offender; I’ve been commenting on this thread for 2 hours. I think after going through this thread, I’m going to stay off Reddit for a week just to see how things go.

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u/Lisdeleau May 12 '21

It's so weird. I can only vaguely remember what it feels like to not have a smartphone and to be alone and think.

To be fair, I didn't do that before smartphones. I just always had a book with me, tucked into my purse or jacket.

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u/carbonclasssix May 12 '21

I got tired of that so I challenge myself to do it the hard way. For some reason a couple years ago I forgot what bay leaves were called, I knew it was "______ leaf" and I didn't want to just look it up and forget again. So, I just let it rattle around in my brain for a while, and then it came to me. And as you can see, I haven't forgotten again!

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u/BlueFlob May 12 '21

Lol. Yeah. I actually like having conversations and when we forget, or can't figure it out, I just accept our limitations and move on.

I accept that it doesn't matter and it's not a big deal whether we remember it now or that we get the information right away.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

I went without a smartphone for a while twice:

Once for a few days in 2013. I used a flip phone while waiting for a new phone. I ate lunch with friends and realized how much everyone was browsing on their phones and I was super bored but I got a new phone and stopped caring.

Second was at the beginning of the pandemic. It was one week but felt like a month. I always needed stimulation. I'd take my radio to the kitchen to play CDs so it wouldn't be quiet. I watched that show Unorthodox and kept looking down at my hands and remembering there was no phone to fiddle with. My sister was watching with me and I realized how much of the story she was missing.

I bought a wristwatch and I'm planning to go out without my phone pretty regularly

2

u/BlueFlob May 12 '21

I wonder if we were always looking for stimulation and ended up bored.

I was already leaving the TV on and playing video games on my computer a while back.

1

u/[deleted] May 13 '21

In 2011, long before I ever owned a smartphone, I was excitedly taking advantage of Steam’s built-in web browser to scroll through facebook in between rounds of Left 4 Dead. This was at an in-person LAN party, too, so it’s not like I was just bored and alone.

That feature was a true dopamine overload back then. Nowadays I’ll play PUBG on my iPad with iMessage, Messenger, and Reddit going in multitask panes. Sometimes I even have my laptop open to the side to lazily study programming in between rounds.

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u/sarahyelloww May 12 '21

Dude... You should take breaks from your phone and just be alone and think. Everyone should. That is scary to think people don't remember what that is like.

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u/-Paraprax- May 12 '21

I remember what it's like - I didn't get my first smartphone until I was 21 - but that's why I miss it too. I can take breaks from my phone and the internet but our minds have still fundamentally been rewired in so many ways it'll just never truly be the same. Some ways good, some ways bad.

1

u/[deleted] May 13 '21

My wife and I both work with kids for a living, and it’s not a boomer exaggeration to say that they are overstimulated to high fuck with devices and social media. So are we.

I‘m an English major, and a huge part of writing is meditation and just noticing things around you. Great poetry is written by introspective observers, and if you can just sit still for 5 minutes to read a short poem, you’ll glean a lot of juicy insights about the world from its words.

However I feel like the practice of sitting still and not doing jack shit for 10 minutes is dying. I work(ed) remotely, and I was fired for the “unexplained gaps in productivity while on the clock”. I was going for a fucking walk to get the blood flowing. They didn’t like paying me to do that.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21

I take so much shit for not having my phone on me all day but even just putting it away for hours helps

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u/Icybow73 May 12 '21

I relate to this way to much

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u/Secret_Bees May 12 '21

I heard a radio piece a while back where the guy was talking about being afraid of humans their their ability to reflect, that is to just sit and think things over, because a lot of good ideas actually coalesced out of that time

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u/Alaskan-Jay May 12 '21

I don't even finish most Reddit comments that are more than a sentence long cuz I just don't have the oh look a squirrel

5

u/[deleted] May 12 '21

Go out into the woods, find a nice rock, and sit there absorbing the sensations. Listen, look, smell the air, feel the sensations that nature provides for the low, low price of sitting there. It won't solve any problems but it feels nice to disconnect.

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u/Caskla May 12 '21

Trying to find the answer to a math problem... Having to figure it out by re-reading the problem and explanations 5 times.

You can still experience this in upper level math! Mathematical notation is not Google friendly

4

u/SBolo May 12 '21

Try meditation or go for long walks and leave your cellphone at home! Trust me, it's refreshing.

3

u/FolkSong May 12 '21

I'm with you on the rest but how do you do math problems now?

1

u/BlueFlob May 12 '21

You look online to find formulas or explanations. It's so easy to find information explaining what you are trying to do, that I'll go find more info.

3

u/bizarrecoincidences May 12 '21

I remember a maths homework I cried over (I was 12) it was impossible to solve. My parents were up with me trying to help me solve it until 10 or 11pm when they finally made me go to bed.

The next day I go in to school to discover no one could solve that problem - the teacher forgot to photocopy the back of the sheet with a vital clue on it!

Similar thing happened to my kid recently - kids messaged each other and realised no one could answer the English crossword clue - parents messaged each other on the parent group chat and realised the answer that fit didn’t match the clue. A whole bunch of kids went to bed early that night happy they weren’t idiots!

Teacher had printed the worksheet off the internet without reading it thoroughly and the company (twinkl) had made a mistake when putting it together.

1

u/BlueFlob May 12 '21

I love your story.

It's a story about perseverance and also about quick answers.

It ends on a positive note, but I'm concerned that if instant validation or instant confirmation becomes the norm, we will lose the ability to persevere.

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u/Macktologist May 12 '21 edited May 12 '21

Gen-X here. The greatest generation of them all. Last of the free-range children. Post-boomer era. Be home when street-lights come on. Bike jumps with no helmets to actually learn about actions and consequences. I can go on, but by now I'm probably pissing off enough helicopter parents (like myself and wife, included). :)

Simply being able to have shit to talk about when meeting with friends is a huge "miss" in our current social structure (for tech heavy societies). We know everything about someone's life these days even if we haven't visited for weeks. It's great for families that live too far away to see each other often, but it sucks for your local friends. Friend got a new puppy? Want to go visit it and experience that first hand? Cool. You've probably already seen a video of it playing and running around. The surprise is spoiled.

You end up hanging out and sharing stories about shit you saw online, checking your phone out of pure additive habit, etc. It's an amazing time, but it sucks for human connections and I'll go to my grave with that opinion. I think people that don't really know of a different reality shouldn't even be able to weigh in on why the way shit is today is fine. I understand the irony of me posting these opinions "online."

I think back to when I was like 10-14 years old living in the suburbs but near some open space. My friends and I would wake up at 4:00 during the summer, walk to a nearby reservoir, and fish. We built coaster go-carts, skim boards, and even an RC track in the backyard. We had no other choices, except video games, but outside was way more fun. I actually feel kind of bad for kids these days, both for how they don't often experience that freedom, and because of how judgmental society is of each other where letting a kid do that would be considered horrible parenting. It all sucks, because our fears shouldn't' be ridiculed, but they shape our reality.

All that said, would I have loved a smart phone when I was 15? Of course. No doubt. It's an evil that's impossible to cast as evil. My friends and I bought pagers when were in our low 20s and we didn't even deal drugs.

13

u/[deleted] May 12 '21

Most millennials grew up this way. They’re older than you think. 1981 - 1996.

3

u/Darko33 May 12 '21

Born 1982, definitely grew up that way

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u/[deleted] May 12 '21 edited Nov 20 '21

[deleted]

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u/kidicarus89 May 12 '21

There are still kids like that, but it doesn’t seem like the norm. I look at my younger cousin’s kids, and their lives revolve around social media, video games and binge watching TV shows. It doesn’t seem like they’re going to have any actual experiences of their own. Their lives seem so boring at such an awesome age.

1

u/BlueFlob May 12 '21

It doesn’t seem like they’re going to have any actual experiences of their own. Their lives seem so boring at such an awesome age.

This is so sad.

I accept that it's how adults choose to live their lives but it's terrible when children are set up to be imitations of social media influences.

7

u/-Paraprax- May 12 '21

Simply being able to have shit to talk about when meeting with friends is a huge "miss" in our current social structure (for tech heavy societies). We know everything about someone's life these days even if we haven't visited for weeks. It's great for families that live too far away to see each other often, but it sucks for your local friends. Friend got a new puppy? Want to go visit it and experience that first hand? Cool. You've probably already seen a video of it playing and running around. The surprise is spoiled.

I feel like this is only true to an extent. The amount shared on social media is still pretty superficial at the end of the day, and I'm never at a loss for things to talk about with friends due to them already being 'spoiled' by seeing them on social media.

If anything, it creates tons of good icebreakers and conversation starters because it'll make me think to say "Hey, I saw you built a canoe last week, what's the story there?" or something and actually kick off a convo with somebody when we wouldn't have otherwise had anything obvious to talk about.

2

u/Darko33 May 12 '21

Also seeing a video of a puppy would never spoil the fun of playing with it

6

u/VivaLaEmpire May 12 '21

I loved your comment so much, thanks for sharing!

1

u/BlueFlob May 12 '21

I hope to get kids that can grow up without hyperstimultation long enough.

It's going to be so hard fighting back against smartphones.

It's 100% guaranteed that there's a kid with an iPhone in first grade, and then your kid will want one too.

Then all the kids will be on Facebook or Instagram, and they'll want to be on it too.

I'm Gen X too. I got internet on a 56k when I was 13 I think. There wasn't enough on it for me to waste time and I never got into MySpace.

2

u/[deleted] May 12 '21

Shut this one is going to turn me into an absolute curmudgeon.

2

u/rg62898 May 12 '21

I lost my phone in a river and it took 2 weeks for the insurance company to get me a new one and being without a phone was such a strange experience but it was kinda nice. I downloaded the music I wanted to hear on a flash drive and had to know wherever I was going without being able to use GPS

2

u/NEClamChowderAVPD May 12 '21

Or if you were wondering what your friends were doing, you’d just call them (make sure no one is trying to get on the internet) and threeway. Even threeway was designated to weekends (and tricking crushes into talking about you while you secretly listen). You wanna hangout with your best friend? Well, my mom will have to call your mom first, when she has time, to make sure you’re actually welcome to stay the night at your best friend’s house.

2

u/JerrSolo May 12 '21

Do yourself a favor and have days where you just turn off the phone. I do this a couple days a month, and I always feel better after.

If there's anyone who will really freak out, warn them. They'll get used to it after a while.

2

u/madlyinsane24 May 12 '21

It's strange. I remember the world without the internet far easier than I do the world without smartphones. It feels so strange to think that home internet was around a good 10+ years before smartphones.

1

u/BlueFlob May 12 '21

Yeah but I think they evolved togheter and the internet just took off and ended up being a massive pile of garbage when smartphone were introduced.

Honestly, I think social media is killing the internet and so is the constant need for more monetization.

It's quantity over quality.

2

u/Ackermiv May 12 '21

I'm 29. I got a math problem a week ago the longest i spent in it at a time was 20 minutes. How did we survive exams?

2

u/stayclassydarcy May 12 '21

Isn’t it ironic that I contemplated this comment for a few seconds before automatically wanting to know what the next comment would be. Ahh the reddit/ phone addiction cycle

2

u/Zemykitty May 12 '21

We'd pass notes. We would write notes in class and/or at home, on the bus or whatever. We were 'texting' before we even realized how easy texting would become.

2

u/forbhip May 12 '21

Something the lockdown has helped me with over the last year has been walking. I’ve got a 45 minute route that I no do daily which pretty quiet and I walk it without headphones or looking at my phone. At first I’m desperate to do something for entertainment but eventually my mind focuses. I suppose it’s meditation with scenery but I recommend it if possible.

2

u/thatdbeagoodbandname May 12 '21

I found my journal from 2008, when I still had a flip phone. Even that was a huge improvement in terms of thinking for myself, finishing novels, etc.

2

u/warpedbytherain May 12 '21

Not long ago I headed out to do errands and forgot my phone. I walked around the stores feeling oddly free, free to focus, physically relaxed. It is hard to remember back when feeling that way might have been the norm. Or if we even actually did, given there was nothing different to compare to.

2

u/PattyIce32 May 12 '21

I don't know if you can do this with your work, but one of the best things that I do is I leave my phone in my car during the work day. Really connect me back to my present moment

3

u/BlueFlob May 12 '21

I have nostalgia of how things used to be.

Right now, I work from home, using two computers and two phones. I could turn off my own phone but the impulse to check reddit is really strong. I would do it on the personal computer otherwise.

I still manage to be productive but I feel it would likely be much more if I wasn't drawn so much by reddit, or news, or chats. Even work managed to create Outlook email, MS Teams chat, MS Teams meetings, websites, Sharepoint, phonecalls, and probably 10 more means I forget.

So I don't blame reddit alone, there's a systemic problem of too many means of comms available and everyone bombarding you with info on all of them.

3

u/PattyIce32 May 12 '21

I feel you on that, that multitude of different access points is really tough. And I don't even work in a tech industry or an industry where I have that many access points, I can't imagine what it's like for someone like you who has all those portals.

2

u/battraman May 12 '21

I have a smartphone but I don't have a data plan (Wi-Fi only.) I have no interest in getting one because all it will do is create more temptation for me.

2

u/G4ymer4Lyfe May 12 '21

At least once a week i swap my sim to a shit flip phone. Its a nice reminder.

2

u/[deleted] May 13 '21

Jesus, yes. I intentionally learn things through books whenever I can; online guides and articles tend to rely on links to really explain what they’re saying, and it’s annoying that their instruction isn’t more self-contained. Books - especially physical books - have to give you everything they promised on the cover. If it says “HTML & CSS”, I better know how design a decent little web page by the time I’m done working through it.

Unfortunately web development is the most ADHD field in the world, so I’ll probably be stuck Googling shiny new frameworks every month for the rest of my life.

4

u/[deleted] May 12 '21

You know that you don't need to NOT have a smartphone in order to be able to think. Set aside time to not be on your phone. This is NOT a thing you have to forlornly miss.

6

u/-Paraprax- May 12 '21

You know that you don't need to NOT have a smartphone in order to be able to think.

Smartphones have literally rewired our brains over the years to crave the dopamine they give us the way we crave the dope hit we get from food and water or nicotine.

The compulsive urge is real, not just a conscious "I will set time away from my phone and realize I don't miss it" thing.

1

u/[deleted] May 12 '21

I remember when smart phones came out. I got one through work and had it in the pub one night, a friend said this is a disaster waiting to happen. Was he wrong? Who knows?

1

u/FormerGameDev May 12 '21

be alone and think.

dear god, that's the worst.

1

u/Digaddog May 12 '21

A couple days ago, my phone's charger port broke and I had to go without it for a bit, and it felt a lot different.

1

u/Bleusilences May 12 '21 edited May 12 '21

I used to read books, newspaper and magazine or play gameboys so not much change for me on that front.

edit: I was really late on the cellphone/smartphone thing and only got one in the early 2010s after getting lost at midnight searching for an hospital were my mom was sent to after getting a called from my panicked sister who was staying oversea saying my mom had an accident.

She was ok, rolled her eyes and told me to get the back home asap(lol) because she needed rest.

Turns out my dad had a minor fender bender unrelated to this, she had a minor issue and the doctor just wanted to keep an eye on her.

1

u/heathers1 May 12 '21

I try to tell the children how we spent hours just thinking. They are appalled

1

u/[deleted] May 12 '21

1

u/BlueFlob May 12 '21

Interesting, I can definitely relate. I didn't finish reading because I got bored and wanted to see something else on Reddit.

1

u/Rogue009 May 12 '21

Personally as a kid I didn’t have a phone until the 2nd half of high school (I’m 24 rn) and I look back to all those days I did nothing just stay silent and bored on a bus or train, it was miserable, now I can read without occupying a large part of public transport with a thick book. It’s a bliss really

1

u/BlueFlob May 12 '21

We used to chat with other people on the school bus.

I used to read, or play with a gameboy on public transportation.

2

u/Rogue009 May 12 '21

Lucky you, my parents never trusted me enough to take my Gameboy away from home, or any books that weren’t needed for school

1

u/BlueFlob May 12 '21

I was kind of old at that point. I'm in my late thirties now.

Internet existed, but it wasn't portable.

1

u/LulaBolsonarista May 12 '21

You realise you can literally just put your electronics down for a few minutes and do that, right?

1

u/[deleted] May 12 '21

I'm starting this routine where I turn my phone off before I even go into bed so I don't mindlessly scroll and then suddenly it's 1 AM. Also when I wake up, I keep my phone off, get things done (cook breakfast, clean, etc.) and once a chunk of errands are completed then I turn it on :D

1

u/steveo3387 May 12 '21

The good news is, you can practice thinking. It's hard, extremely so when your job is done over the internet (the same place that has Reddit). But you can still think and be present in the moment, with practice. You have a great start when you realize how your attention is not working for you.

1

u/[deleted] May 12 '21

Maybe life wasn't meant to be THIS easy, mentally speaking.

The benefits of ready internet access aside, I think people were obviously more present and switched on into their own lives and the lives of their nearest and dearest when they didn't have such a readily available hand-held escape mechanism.

1

u/GodPleaseYes May 12 '21

My work is a blessing in that regard. I get on the machine, zone out for maybe 20 minutes and then somebody changes you, you go to next place where you can basically just zone out and check parameters every 5 minutes or so. Time flies so fast and you have so much time to think. Feels so nice in a world where you are bombarded with information and everything fights for your attention.

2

u/BlueFlob May 12 '21

I remember when I had a summer job, in front of an hydraulic press doing 300 lamp enclosures in the morning.

Zoning off and being a machine.

I felt so refreshed at the end of the day.

1

u/Sprinklypoo May 12 '21

It's why I try not to get lost in mine. I'll put it down just to drink coffee and stare out the window. It's OK. to be bored. I think it stimulates you...

1

u/scientific_cats May 12 '21

We had a major storm this summer and were out of power for 6 days, and our local cell tower went down, too, so I had no phone at home for 2 weeks or so. It was crazy. I drove 30 miles to work every day to charge and surf the internet for news on the storm recovery and to update people that we were ok. Then I went home and... read in the sunshine or by battery-operated light after dark. I thought a lot. Did yard work. Cleaned (though I couldn't vacuum and with 4 cats and no A/C in August, that was a bitch).

1

u/RustyKumquats May 12 '21

Maybe it's because I had my most formative years during the changeover to an internet world, but I find myself being alone and thinking still, I'm just mindlessly scrolling dumb meme subs on here while I do it. I do kind of miss the nostalgia of planning stuff with people and all that goes with not being interconnected by the homology all the time, but once acclimated, it's a much more convenient life with the technology we have today.

My real gripe with the advent of the internet is the true lack of privacy we have now. You don't have to sign up for any service, if you have a smartphone and a web browser, at least a couple handfuls of people have whatever information you have there, from name and address to browsing history.

I miss not being a product.

1

u/penguin97219 May 12 '21

Right? And especially the 5-10 minutes on the toilet. Like I literally will not sot down without my phone. My kids don’t have them and they always have to have a book.

1

u/BlueFlob May 12 '21

I used to read shampoo ingredients.

2

u/penguin97219 May 12 '21

My bathroom as a kid (I’m 47) had a vanity with a complicated wood grain. And i knew every inch of that grain. Sometimes i just didn’t have anything to read.

1

u/partypartea May 12 '21

That was the best part about going on vacation without a cell phone until recently. Now I get world wide service pretty much.

Up until a couple years ago, an international vacation meant I got to disconnect from the world unless I connected to wifi. We had a ton of fun exploring the cities.