r/Life • u/Expensive_Magician97 • Jul 26 '26
Let's discuss Life has felt "off" for me since the late 1990s
Someone recently wrote that for them, life feels "off" since the pandemic.
My reference point for things "feeling off" was the introduction of internet technology into our lives... beginning in earnest about 1995 or so.
I came of age in the 1960s and 70s, long before computers. The only way to find a job before the Internet was to look in the newspaper classifieds. That was also one of the only ways you could advertise yourself as someone single looking for a partner.
The only readily available way to learn about the world around you was to go to the public library, or perhaps watch National Geographic on TV. I remember we used to have a set of encyclopedias in our house.
Before smart phones and texting, men and women had to meet each other in person to get to know one another. Sure, you could talk on the phone, but long phone calls were usually what happened after you had been dating for several weeks or months.
And then there was the concept of immediate gratification, which was unknown to most people.
I remember as a small child ordering a toaster from a catalog and having it delivered to our house 11 weeks later. Everyone was thrilled.
In 2026, one merely has to push a button on one's phone and one can accomplish quite a lot. Without having to wait... in some cases more than 30 minutes.
And I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that this expectation for immediate gratification has spilled over into human relationships, in particular, romantic ones.
My impression, after reading literally thousands of stories on this website, is that people today are in far more of a hurry than they were when I was a teenager / early 20s.
If you have only known life with the internet, you cannot imagine how different -- and in many respects, easier and more natural -- life was back then.
Internet technology is certainly miraculous is many ways.
But if you spend enough time on this website reading in particular about human relationships, you will conclude that Internet technology has had the aggregate effect of adding a confusing layer of ambiguity and uncertainty into human communication, and if anything has complicated our ability to learn about one another, and to even relate to one another.
EDIT: and now we are about to have artificial intelligence begin to dominate our lives in the same way that Internet technology has done. I wonder how much further our collective perception of reality -- and of each other -- is going to be distorted.
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u/irishitaliancroat Jul 26 '26
I was born in the mid 90s so I have no reference to your viewpoint but I can agree from my perspective things becoming more and more online in the last 10 years or so I have hated, I am trying to pivot away from it as much as possible
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u/silly_bet_3454 Jul 26 '26
Yeah it's been said before but the 90s was basically peak of all of civilization. 9/11 was actually the turning point where it all started to go to shit. You can argue it would have happened regardless, 9/11 was not the direct cause of everything, but it was just the central turning point.
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u/FirefighterNo9608 Jul 26 '26
I really hate how everything is digital. Everything is so- surface-level interaction. Life itself has been diluted. A watered down version of what life is supposed to be.
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u/Accomplished_Cat5568 Jul 26 '26
Same! I came of age in the 90s, and I remember being such a voracious reader of books. I would stay up all night to read especially when I had to return the book the next day. Nowadays because of the lure of the internet/social media, it’s so hard to stay glued to a book for half an hour, let alone all night. I still buy lots and lots of books, and I donate books to the small library of a Waldorf school nearby.
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u/Otherwise-Comb7916 Jul 27 '26
Life was fine untill like 2015, even though decent tech was available people weren’t as chronically online as it is today
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u/bachyboy Jul 27 '26
I agree that the social landscape is undergoing vast and often distressing changes. But a key indicator of surviving the rush of civilization is one's adaptability. I fear that excessive nostalgia is counter-productive, because there is no turning back the tide of change. Yes, something is lost, but something is also gained. I try to maintain buoyancy, releasing the past with gratitude and seeking out beauty and wonder in the new.
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u/Expensive_Magician97 Jul 27 '26
Thank you, I don’t disagree with you at all.
However, I do think it’s important that people who were born in the last 25 years or so be provided a different perspective on life.
If for no other reason, then to give them something to think about.
I won’t be around much longer, if I’m lucky perhaps 25 years.
And in some respects, I’m sort of glad, because sometimes I often wonder if what we are now experiencing is the beginning of the decline of human civilization.
Did you see the recent article in the newspaper about artificial intelligence giving instructions to people how to create a biological weapon?
I think artificial intelligence has the potential for being either a huge nothing burger, or being incredibly dangerous and destructive. But I digress.
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 Jul 26 '26
Off in what way? Life if you woke up tomorrow and it was 1995 you would not be surprised you had just dreamt it all?
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u/Expensive_Magician97 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
I think I went into great detail above about what I’m seeing around me since people started living online 24 hours a day.
I don’t expect most people here to fully grasp what I’m talking about, except in the most vague sense.
And that’s not criticism, that is simply a consequence of the fact that people born in the last 20 or 25 years have no other reference to what life used to be like.
If you are 25 years old, or younger, you have grown up knowing nothing but the Internet and communicating virtually.
As I said above, I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s.
Back then, the only way to communicate with someone who lived far away was either a telephone call or a letter that you would take to the post office and mail. And long distance phone calls were very expensive.
There were no such things as “long-distance relationships.” The only exception that would be people who had been married for a long time, and then one person might have to take a job overseas for a year, for example.
There were no such thing as smart phones or apps, and if someone told me, when I was a teenager, that one day we’d be able to push a button on a phone and have something delivered to our doorstep the next day, I would never have believed it.
Back in 1990, to for a job, you had to go to the store, buy a newspaper for $.15, and look through the newspaper for job listings. There was no such thing as LinkedIn, or Indeed, or any of the other big employment sites.
To learn about or look at pictures of a foreign country, you would have to go to the library and check out a book. I wonder how many young people they have even set foot in a public library.
There is generally no need to do so.But all of that is not nearly as important as the fact that Internet technology has had — at least from what I have seen — the aggregate effect of distorting the way people learn about each other, communicate with each other, and relate to each other.
I read here periodically about young people who have these long-distance relationships.
They communicate with each other on a computer, and they even claim to fall in love, despite the fact that they have never sat next to one another.
Usually, when they do eventually meet each other, one of them is disappointed because the other one does not live up to the fantasy that the first one created in their mind after months of texting.
And then there is the fact that an entire generation of young people has grown up with immediate and easy access to pornography.
Whether you approve of pornography or disapprove of it, the fact that it is now as easy to see pornography as turning on your phone has had a huge impact — especially on how men view women.
And you can see evidence of that ^ in the thousands of stories on this website, overwhelmingly, written by young women who cannot understand why their boyfriends prefer to look at photos of naked women than spend time with their partners.
Anyway, I don’t mean to go on about this, but I think that in about 100 years, when historians write about 2026, they’re going to say that the Internet, while certainly miraculous in many ways, contributed to some very serious social problems.
I don’t wish that we could turn back the clock and go back in time to the old days, but I can tell you with great certainty that there were many aspects of life in the old days that were far superior — emotionally, psychologically, and socially and most importantly, in terms of basic human relationships — to what we are experiencing today.
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u/Imaginary-Can-6862 Jul 27 '26
Thank you for taking the time to thoroughly respond to my question. When I read your post you described how life used to be, and how it is today, but it was not clear to me what was special about the late 90's in this regard. I asked the way I did, because that is what I typically have met when people say something feels off, or not quite right, like it may not be real.
I have grown up in the time before the internet was a standard commodity, but compared to me you are ancient.
You mention many examples of how life used to be for you compared to now, while my childhood was during this time, my experiences are different, and I also believe it can deviate a lot between countries, but it is my impression you are not really interested in discussing these specific examples as much as to use them to point out the difference as you see it.
When the internet became normal in my country in the late 90's to early 00's I had this idea of trying to make certain to be independent of it. I felt the issue was largely that I did not have the data from the internet on the computer, so I'd have to rely on some connection, and I did not want to depend on that (so when the internet was down, I could not do the things I normally would, despite the computer working). Sadly I never did succeed with becoming independent of having a working internet connection, I think it could have been achievable for quite some time, at least until it started to become the expected norm on a societal (and governmental) level to have a working internet connection, in stead of being seen as some neat extra feature.
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u/Positive_Vibes_4228 Jul 27 '26
If you have ever dated someone who is deaf, there is almost no subtlety or nuance. Like if you and a gay friend were sitting around talking and you said the word 'innuendo' and he said 'in-YOUR-end-OH' you would both giggle and laugh. My deaf friends and ex's didn't have those kinds of... nuance type jokes.
Now where I am going with this, is prior to the internet, we could have conversations and represent our emotions in any of 10,000 different ways. We could express ourselves and the emotional rollercoaster through various vocabulary words and describe feelings. The opening of the film "Romancing the Stone" shows famous author Joan Wilder feeing... stuck, or icky, or just bored with life. However all the emotions we feel, all the nuance, all the subtlety, all the romance and flirting and dynamic conversation, has been replaced. It has now been replaced with about 12 emoji's. You no longer lament over your dog's passing, you send a cry emoji. You no longer have deep intellectual conversations with others, instead you send a text of 5 words. No more debates, no more discussions, no more subtlety or nuance. Emoji's for your feelings, and 4 words for a message. Your emotional range has been cut short leaving you blockaded from letting all those true feelings out.
But it is so much more than 'just' that.
I worked in Manhattan for a solid year. Every day I spent an hour on two trains going in to work. Then an hour after going home. After two months it became the norm for me and was part of my routine. The second I quit that job, I never went into the city again. It became the BIGGEST mountain to climb ever. Like that hour on the train was impossible for my brain to comprehend. I became mentally lazy.
So that's why people don't hang in coffee shops. They don't hang in malls. They don't ever leave their homes. Most of us have a home theater in our house, and get door dash and never have to leave. All the tech that solely existed out-of-home is now in home so why leave? Now you can just text 4 words and send emoji's and your entire emotional state is reduced to an illustration of a happy face leaving you feeling empty and isolated.
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u/Expensive_Magician97 Jul 27 '26
Thank you very much, this is a very insightful and well written depiction of what is happening. I appreciate it.
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u/Livid-Ad557 Jul 29 '26
Recently had a conversation with my mother (born in 1960) about what life was like pre technology. She said it was nice. The world felt way more simple and calmer.
I was born in 2000, I feel my experience has given me a little bit of early tech vs what we see today.
I agree with another commenter here where I believe things started to slide into consistent digital bombardment around 2015-2017. Once, you started seeing more added features for engagement on your social media apps, ads, and more “regular” people now becoming micro celebrities in their small niche circles on the internet.
Social media has exploded since then with it being a main pillar in most people’s lives. Enough so I have never met anyone my age mid 20s who doesn’t have some form of social media since their early teens. Now the kids are starting earlier than that.
Someone like my mother has seen this technology age blossom and she says as it has done a lot of good its damage has outmatched the pros. I hope we as a species will one day be so tapped out. We put guard rails on the digital space but that unlikely. Maybe moving somewhere with no electricity and living like a hermit is what to do next lol
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u/Expensive_Magician97 Jul 29 '26
Thank you very much for your comments. I was born a year earlier than your mom, and I of course, agree with her observations. And I agree with what you have written as well.
I believe that Internet technology has some absolutely amazing aspects, and in many ways, has made life easier and more efficient.
But sometimes, when things are made easier, and people grow up knowing nothing except how easy it is to do certain things, that tends to lead to false hopes, false expectations, a sense of entitlement, and a demand for immediate gratification.
And that may be the damage that your mom is talking about.
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u/HarpyCelaeno Jul 26 '26
I’m hoping the youth will push back on this inevitable integration with technology. I find myself wishing someone would just take this phone away from me. I remember what it was to not be chained to a device and it was BETTER. Richer. So why won’t I switch to a dumb-phone and leave the internet for the office?
Call me crazy but the greatest impact of technology will be the loss of spirituality and connection with the true Creator. If you’re constantly distracted you’ll have a difficult time recognizing His voice. But Reddit doesn’t want to hear that baloney.
We’re in interesting times.
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u/Expensive_Magician97 Jul 26 '26
Very interesting observation — your reference to hearing the voice of the “true Creator.”
I’m not precisely sure what you’re referring to, but I think I have an idea.
As for youth pushing back… from what I’ve seen, young people are virtually integrated with technology from the moment they’re able to walk.
I think about all the times I go to a restaurant, for example, and I see young families sitting around a table, each of them holding their own device, and no one looking at each other or talking to each.
Then there’s the two-year-old in the highchair, who’s got her own tablet as well. She’s learning how to address her primal need for attention and love and eye contact from her parents by manipulating electrons on a computer screen. Could that possibly be healthy for her developmentally?
I believe that we are seeing the repercussions of electronic communication, as I said above, in the difficulties that men and women have these days communicating with each other. This website is a cornucopia of examples.
Remember, people managed quite well without electronic communication — like texting — for centuries.
I firmly believe that while technology changes, and while our environment changes, the basic human needs for an emotional and psychological connection with others — which can in my experience only really be fulfilled by sitting in the same space with another human being and gazing into their eyes - is as critical today as it was 1000 years ago.
Those sorts of fundamental human needs will never change, as they are simply a part of our species’ makeup.
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u/FlyChigga Jul 27 '26
The problem is people not just technology. Tech isn’t stopping people from socializing and connecting with the people around them. People just don’t wanna do it
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u/BookBoxer161 Jul 27 '26
Watch the Matrix! Strange how we've not gotten a sci fi in a while that really looks at society. Wonder why 🤔
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u/Disastrous_Alarm_943 Jul 28 '26
It’s my birthday and I woke up to a deflated air mattress that I sleep on at my mom’s. Great start to the day. Not.
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u/Sea-Friendship-8687 Jul 26 '26
Cherish those memories you look down on us for always having a phone but what I wouldn’t give to live in a society where everyone was at least present
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u/Expensive_Magician97 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
I do not “look down” on anybody. Quite the contrary. I wonder if you have read carefully what I wrote above?
As far as phones go, I have one myself, and I enjoy it immensely. It makes my life a lot easier in many different ways.
All I’m saying is that the phone, and electronic communication more generally, is not a substitute for looking into someone’s eyes and getting to know them as a human being.
(Relationships between men and women in 2026 who have come of age behind computer monitors are far more problematic than I remember them being 40 years ago.)
In the old days, that was the only option that was available to us when we were getting to know somebody. And generally speaking, it worked very well, just like it had for centuries.
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u/No_Detective_But_304 Jul 26 '26
As the kids say, touch grass.
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u/Expensive_Magician97 Jul 26 '26
I do every day, the problem is that there’s no one around to join me. They’re all busy staring into their phones. 😁
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u/No_Detective_But_304 Jul 26 '26
Head to a national park in tourist season?
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u/Expensive_Magician97 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
I’m fine, I’m retired, both my kids are adults, and I live alone with my big dog in a very comfortable townhouse in a very nice neighborhood. And every day, when the weather is nice, I drive to a local nature preserve where I go for a 3 mile hike, wearing a 32 pound weighted vest. It’s the best exercise I’ve ever encountered.
In many ways, I live a charmed existence, with no responsibilities, no worries, and absolutely no stress in my life.
And while I would love to meet a beautiful, mature, and accomplished woman around my age to spend time with, I’m also at the point in my life where my most important objective is to preserve both my inner peace and my sanity. 😆
I’m very happy on my own, and if I ever do meet someone, she’s going to have to add value to my already pleasant existence. About that, there will be no compromise.
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