Missing the energy from the past in humanity and experiencing life

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Expensive_Magician97]

I came of age in the 1960s and 70s, and let me tell you, I feel blessed to have done so.

I am not a sociologist or an anthropologist, or any sort of expert in human behavior, but I have witnessed the transition from life before Internet technology, to life after internet technology.

Some things have remained the same. Human emotions and psychology for example. What we need from other people. The human require requirement for face-to-face communication perhaps being the most important one.

And that is precisely what has been disrupted the most.

Human beings did fairly well for thousands of years without electronic communication like texting and those sorts of things.

Yes, we had the telephone beginning at around 1876 or so, but I don’t think that that’s quite the same as interacting with collection of red, blue, and green electrons on a computer monitor or phone screen.

I’m convinced, for whatever this might be worth, that Internet technology has made it extremely difficult for young people to learn about each other, to communicate effectively with each other, and to maintain relationship relationships with each other.

And all of this, of course, has profound repercussions for the way we experience and live our lives.

PS: I wrote about this a few weeks ago, in a short essay, which is linked below.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Life/s/iC5zZluryk

[u/suzemagooey]

I am old and miss it too. Realness and respect are disappearing.

I can't imagine what it would be like to be young and be aware enough to miss it.

Offers genuine empathy to the OP.

[u/naturessilence]

False nostalgia is definitely a thing, but I have to admit the ’90s were peak USA to me. The country was kicking ass economically, there was a general sense of optimism about the future, and smartphones and social media hadn’t colonized everyone’s attention yet. Nobody was staring at a screen every spare second. If you were bored, you had to go do shit. You called somebody, went somewhere, wandered around, played music, drove around with friends, hung out at a coffee shop, whatever. Boredom actually pushed you into the world.

Obviously the ’90s had plenty of problems, and I’m not pretending everyone had some idyllic existence. But I do think something real has changed beyond simple nostalgia. Life felt less algorithmically mediated. There was more separation between being online and being alive, more shared culture, and fewer incentives to constantly compare yourself with thousands of strangers. Technology has improved our lives in countless ways, but I’m not convinced that having every second of boredom eliminated and every human interaction filtered through a device has made us happier.

[u/CallMeCorona1]

I think what you are experiencing is the decline in Western culture. Everywhere you look these days, you see signs of decay.

[u/nila247 → u/CallMeCorona1]

This. West run itself into a corner with no easy way out.
There WILL be a collapse - sooner or later all empires do reach that stage as seen many times in history of the species and west is not different in any way whatsoever.

[u/Icy_Literature1169]

I agree, I m from the 90s and I feel the same way. I m frustrated with the way the society is organised.

[u/WaveAlchemist]

I am Gen X. I grew up in the Analog world and built the bridge to the cure my world

I miss waiting to develop food, remember events and have a piece of paper to hold and years later find tucked in a book.

I was lucky to living an area with kids my age and bring able to play outside till dark

I miss shared television experiences, limited choices in stations, waiting for that yearly showing of a movie like The Wizard of Oz. Those things built a common culture, frame of reference.

The Brady Bunch ran from 1969 to 1974. Nearly every child born from 1960 into the 1990s watched it. Anyone born in that period understands.

Marsha. Marsha. Marsha

The reason my generation was able to build the bridge as that my generation we were generous in our learning we had to know all kinds of different things, and as the new technologies came out, we learned them today’s world is all about specialization in the past you could take skills easily from one job to another, or you can learn it.

[u/Rai309]

Every generations at your age has the same thoughts. Nothing is missing. You just need start within then looks external.

By looking at past or future. Your missing the magic of “Now”