What was life like before social media?

ancapailldorcha

I've seen people at shows who seem more concerned with recording it on the latest iCrap so they can tag themselves on Farcebook. A bit sad really.

Sinfonia

Magico Gonzalez wrote: »

Now someone whips out the phone, shows a video, everyone chuckles for 10 seconds and goes back to staring at the lump of plastic in their hands. Kids can't tell a tale these days, no room for a wee bit of artistic license. It's all immediate, gone in 6 seconds when the vine ends.

Bah humbug.

Agreed, I think this is what annoys me the most.
I mean I don't mind when people share videos etc. online, but when I'm actually spending time with someone in person and they keep sticking a phone in my face to watch some video, I just hate it. I really miss when people would, as above, tell you a story about a thing they saw.

Also the bite-size thing annoys me. Someone I know was making an eight-minute documentary for a charitable cause, to mostly be distributed via social media, and I couldn't help but think that nobody will have the patience to watch anything that's longer than one minute.

Mister Vain

beks101 wrote: »

Narcissism was less of a thing.

You gave less of a shyte about how you looked or how you acted because there was no fear that it would turn up all over social media for several hundred people to see and judge instantly.

If you were going somewhere out of the ordinary, you might bring a little sh1tty Kodak disposable camera, get the pictures developed two months later and throw them into a dusty photo album to pull out once every couple of years and have a fond aul reminisce.

You wrote letters and had pen pals. You went to the post office to buy stamps.

You used the phonebook to find the number for the local takeaway or hair salon or plumber or xtravision or Mrs O'Dwyer up the road.

You rented VHS tapes from xtravision and were a member of the local library.

You called your friend's parents house - "Is Emma there?" and spent hours on the phone gossiping in the middle of the hallway because cordless phones were not a thing yet.

You knew all your friends' home numbers by heart.

You sat by the radio for HOURS waiting for your favourite song to come on so you could quickly press 'record' and catch it on a cassette. Most likely on your ghetto blaster. AND THE DJ ALWAYS FCUKED IT UP BY TALKING WAY BEFORE THE SONG ENDED.

You listened to pirate radio stations. ('I listen to Long Wave Radio Atlantic 252 now give me my money!')

Your childhood consisted of outdoor games like hopscotch, Tip the Can, Red Rover, jumping rope (Vote, vote, vote for De-Val-eeeerrrrrrr-aaaa), British Bulldog and tag.

You were less fat and lazy because you didn't spend all of your free time on your arse. In order to gather information, you had to leave the house.

You played cards. You were a boss at Spit.

You owned a walkman and an alarm clock. You also owned a gameboy and lost your sh1t when you fcuked up at Level 5 on Tetris.

You knew your neighbours and probably hung out with them.

What a beautiful nostalgic post.

Wacker The Attacker

I used to participate in real sports

mrsdewinter

So much misplaced nostalgia! When your best friend moved away, that was it. Sure you'd promise to write and keep in touch but you hardly ever did. I love the way I can idly 'like' the fact that a woman I used to work with has got engaged. It doesn't mean I'll be heartbroken if I'm not invited to the wedding, but it's kinda nice to know she's doing well.
Honestly. I well remember life before social media and there was no shortage of narcissists.

Saipanne

mrsdewinter wrote: »

So much misplaced nostalgia! When your best friend moved away, that was it. Sure you'd promise to write and keep in touch but you hardly ever did. I love the way I can idly 'like' the fact that a woman I used to work with has got engaged. It doesn't mean I'll be heartbroken if I'm not invited to the wedding, but it's kinda nice to know she's doing well.
Honestly. I well remember life before social media and there was no shortage of narcissists.

Yeah, but its spreading like a pandemic due to these sites.

cloud493

- VHS and cassette tapes can **** right off and stay in the past where they belong.
- mobile phones and smartphones are so ****ing handy. Even for simple stuff, like waiting for the bus and not having to wait hours or carry a timetable in my pocket.
- All these cameras can **** off though. I remember when I first saw a camera on a phone, I thought it was mental.
- I lost contact with a lot of people I knew. But they were bollocks, so I don't care.
- renting stuff from places like blockbuster and the video shop is obviously less convenient than netflix and the like, but I'm still kind of sad its gone.
- removable battery operated devices can also sod off. I used to spend all my pocket on bloody batteries.

beks101

mrsdewinter wrote: »

So much misplaced nostalgia! When your best friend moved away, that was it. Sure you'd promise to write and keep in touch but you hardly ever did. I love the way I can idly 'like' the fact that a woman I used to work with has got engaged. It doesn't mean I'll be heartbroken if I'm not invited to the wedding, but it's kinda nice to know she's doing well.
Honestly. I well remember life before social media and there was no shortage of narcissists.

Ah yeah, but then you had closure on that friendship, rather than the half-assed meaningless 'keeping tabs on someone' that you do nowadays on facebook and the like. Contact and communication was more meaningful - as opposed to not knowing that person in any real, true sense years later, but knowing that they go skiing in Andorra every year after Christmas and like to eat - and post about - fancy five star dinners.

And sure, narcissism has been a thing since the dawn of time. It's just never been encouraged as a favourable, valuable and 'normal' trait as much as it is in this generation. If someone wasted their entire film of crappy disposable pictures taking 27 selfies several decades ago everyone would have thought they were a proper knob. They'd probably have been kicked out of the camera shop. Nowadays - "babe!! xxxxxxxxx" and 67 'likes'.

4zn76tysfajdxp

Instead of being on Facebook 8 hours a day people watched TV 8 hours a day. Halcyon days, indeed.

Junkyard Tom

For anyone interested in this type of thing here's a map of undersea internet cables that carry the photos of your bum across the globe in a flash.

zeffabelli

SKype, facebook etc...all it does for me is amplify the absence.

Stop pretending this is connection. It's a symptom of disconnection and that is all it is.

whatismyname

Before social media, my facebook 'friends' had no practical way of sharing pictures of all their valentine's day presents with me.

(Yes, I was shocked and appalled this year that this is the thing).

Now we've social media, I have the hassle of unfriending people once I realise that's the type of person they are. Yay.

smash

whatismyname wrote: »

Now we've social media, I have the hassle of unfriending people once I realise that's the type of person they are. Yay.

I've unfriended people in real life because of their social media antics.

zeffabelli

Mix tapes. The love letters of the 80s.

whatismyname

smash wrote: »

I've unfriended people in real life because of their social media antics.

Totally. I also downsized vastly the number of friends I had on Smugbook lasts year, and kept it to a smaller, safer, more reasonable number.

In my opinion, social media antics can tell a lot about a person.

If you're the type of person who has any desire within you to show off presents to everyone online, and rave about how wonderful the person who gave them to you is, and how lucky you are... etc... etc... etc... I'm not sure you're my kind of person.

Am I jealous? Honestly don't know. Quite possibly, but it's not even all that relevant.

To me, there's a lot more to it than that.

Mister Vain

Macavity. wrote: »

You could drunkenly expose your penis and shake it all about while singing the chorus of Flashdance's hit song Maniac without having to worry about someone putting the video up on Facebook.

Or get a blowjob from a girl in a nightclub in Magaluf.

superelliptic

Bob.Carcass wrote: »

Ah come on dude, It wasn't the stone age.

Phoning people was very easy, most had landlines and some had mobiles

Nearly everyone had a camera, events were organised for niche interests all the time and they were much bigger better and better promoted than they are nowadays

Also, the part about wasting loads of time waiting on your mates to show up was by no means a universal experience. I was never left waiting for anyone longer than about 15-20 minutes max, and then only rarely. You'd stop getting invited to things if you were always the last one to show.

TheBeardedLady

zeffabelli wrote: »

Mix tapes. The love letters of the 80s.

As were love letters.

4zn76tysfajdxp

whatismyname wrote: »

If you're the type of person who has any desire within you to show off presents to everyone online, and rave about how wonderful the person who gave them to you is, and how lucky you are... etc... etc... etc... I'm not sure you're my kind of person.

Am I jealous? Honestly don't know. Quite possibly, but it's not even all that relevant.

Yeah, you're just jealous.

whatismyname

Willa Modern Roundworm wrote: »

Yeah, you're just jealous.

Yep, probably jealous, but far from 'just' jealous... things just aren't that black and white.. and I do have some standards :rolleyes:

Mister Vain

There were no duck faces back in them days.

MRnotlob606

I'm 20 also, but I really think that Social media has made us worse off in most respects and made us more self-conscious.It violates natural human interactions.

El_Dangeroso

Your Superior wrote: »

We didn't have to worry about people posting photos of us on nights out. We actually took the time to see our friends in person. We didn't have mobile phones so would arrange to meet at a certain time, and then actually be there. We didn't seek likes or retweets to validate ourselves. We read books, listened to music, played and watched sport, went to the cinema, even watched TV believe it or not.

We honestly seemed a lot happier and more rounded than people in their teens and 20s today. Less concerned by what others thought of us, as other than your friends, you didn't really give a shït what anyone thought.

People were not more rounded and happier, and people always cared what others thought of them. I think people are far less insecure now than they were.

• People still read books (on a kindle allowing access to thousands of books in seconds)
• People still listen to music (paying nothing or a small monthly fee for all songs rather than £25 for a CD!)
• People still watch movies in the cinema, but also can stream content directly into their homes
• You're right about sport though, absolutely no one follows sport anymore

Things are a gajillion times better now than they were in the 90's and the great thing is that if you don't want to partake in technology you don't have to.

I don't have social media is becoming the next 'I don't watch TV' for those who just love feeling superior to the lesser mortals around them.

Junkyard Tom

diomed wrote: »

Cats were cats, not media stars.

Cats were always stars it's just that regular media outlets didn't realise that until they learned it from youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faSHV6bBZWI

El_Dangeroso

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Things are a gajillion times better now than they were in the 90's and the great thing is that if you don't want to partake in technology you don't have to.

I don't think they are.

Nor are they worse.

They are just...different...

lulu1

My sister in her sixties sent me a text message saying

I want to go on facebook but I dont want the neighbours or anyone to know that I am on it.
Anyway her daughter set it up
Next thing the phonecall comes and her squelling at the top of her voice
My age is up My age is up the whole flippin country knows what age I am now
I was in hysterics Anyway we got her age off her profile
Another text message saying "i dont think yer woman is right in the head do you see what she posts".
Then I send her a pm when I know she's on line and again I get a tex message this went on for a half an hour and finally i say why are you answering me with your phone why not pm me So her answer to that was
I can write a message but I dont know how to send it

Give me strength Latest text message I think i am addicted to this facebook lark

whatismyname

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't think they are.

Nor are they worse.

They are just...different...

Better in some ways for some...

Worse in some ways for some also...

Robsweezie

if you were getting bullied at school, going home to the safety of your room was a brief respite until things were sorted, provided your phone number wasn't common knowledge, and you lived a safe distance from your tormentors.

nowadays you flick on the laptop and can read anything said about you on any site, all in your own home( although I question the intelligence of someone openly bullying on social media where it can be fed back to the school) it carries on outside the school gates, that's what makes me feel for the younger crowd today. facebook can be a tool for embarrassment, humiliation and pure venom on a public scale.

the accessibility is a tad excessive. theres no mystery to us anymore, its all laid out on the table for the rest to see. where you've been, who with, who you're seeing, who you're fighting with if you wanna go that far, what you're doing etc.etc. I managed to find a good portion of my former teacher's profiles online, in which I saw them in a new light, shall we say. every night out and social function turns into a facebook photoshoot. a nightmare for those who are camera shy and don't want their mush broadcast on facebook to the judgement and scrutiny of strangers, friends and acquaintances alike.

its worrying when you can tell that someones been to a party, or any other information without actually hearing it from the horses mouth. I found my boss's profile and now know her children's names, husbands name and where she's worked and studied despite never discussing this with her just by her latest posts alone. ''you were a lawyer weren't you'' ''how did you know?'' ''I saw it on your facebook''. ''how was your party last night? '' how did you know bout the party?'' ''facebook, jesus johnny looked **** faced in those photos'' those were fake examples of conversations I wouldn't have, but the amount of dirt you can dig on someone just by looking around their profiles can amaze you.

this 'found out on facebook'' lark ruins the buzz of things like finding out someone is pregnant or engaged or any good news, a cheap status is no substitute for being told in person.

another thing, and its a dark example, imagine some poor girl who was sexually assaulted, who's successfully moved forward with her life and put the past behind her, and stumbles upon her attacker's profile. seeing their face again would undoubtedly bring back horrible memories, that she could've avoided without social media. or worse, he finds her, remembers her and harasses her again, she could block him but its still hard to shake that off. it could be your ex, the **** who bullied you at school, or just an unwelcome face from the past you'd rather forget, the point is essentially everyone is on there these days, like an extension of real life, so much so it's viewed as odd if you're not.

fin12

Life was better, Im not on facebook cause I just feel like its a place where people boast about how great their lives are and endless pictures of holidays, I think if you're feeling down at all about yourself and your life facebook is the last place u would want to go on, it will make you feel 100 times worse.

They were actually discussing that on Midday and one person said she left because her friend was going through a really bad time in life but at the same time if you looked at her facebook page you would think everything was fine.

its just fake and it puts pressure on people.

Like if you havent gone on a holiday in years and then you see the facebook pages of people you know with loads of pictures and information about their travels, of course that's going to make you feel like crap.

Facebook just makes me feel depressed so i dont go near it.

Mint Aero

I was out foreign a few months ago where I didn't know anyone. Happened upon a bunch of Irish cailins in a club. Great says I. From my county too? Great says I

Suddenly

Phones were whipped out, facebook opened. What did you say your second name was again? Which one is your profile, I can't find you?!

I'm not on facebook...

You're not who you say you are etc. what's your real name?! Why dont you know my cousin???

At this point I was like riiiiiight, I'm gonna chat to the normal foreign wimmen then buhbye.

To be fair they were nurses and about 5 years younger than me the group of 6 them but t'was just plain sad & rude on their behalf. Social media have infected them.

fin12

Mint Aero wrote: »

I was out foreign a few months ago where I didn't know anyone. Happened upon a bunch of Irish cailins in a club. Great says I. From my county too? Great says I

Suddenly

Phones were whipped out, facebook opened. What did you say your second name was again? Which one is your profile, I can't find you?!

I'm not on facebook...

You're not who you say you are etc. what's your real name?! Why dont you know my cousin???

At this point I was like riiiiiight, I'm gonna chat to the normal foreign wimmen then buhbye.

To be fair they were nurses and about 5 years younger than me the group of 6 them but t'was just plain sad & rude on their behalf. Social media have infected them.

I actually find when I tell people I'm not on facebook they're more intrigued than anything, like there's some interesting story behind it when its just ya facebook makes me depressed. Thats why Im not on it.

the evasion_kid

You used to have to send a papyrus scroll to friends to tell them what you thought of their dinner

Paramite Pie

I remember buying Walkie Talkies in Smyths in the late 90s, thinking it'd be so cool to be able to communicate with friends who live just down the road, through crackly static.

They had a very poor range and ate batteries. Also we both actually had to leave our houses and walk a bit down the road to be able to hear each other more clearly.
It was fun testing the range and feeling like a spy or soldier or something though..:pac:

I'm only 28 so it's hard to grasp the difference to people in their early 20s. Phones didn't become popular among teens until after 2000 and it was still very controversial.

I didn't have internet until 2003 and it was so slow I barely used it. Social Networking was new when I was in college and I was the one of the only people I knew with a Myspace in 2007. There were so few on it that it was common to add strangers and make online friends. It didn't interfere with my real life (besides making me more comfortable around real strangers) but it was the start of things to come...:cool:

efb

Bleak. Very bleak.

Beer Assistant

When it rained your life was over stuck inside with only Rte1 & Rte2

Jesus Wept

You can't remember before you were 12?

paleoperson

Isn't this 2007? oh... errr... damn, time is moving on.

TheBeardedLady

I wouldn't say the 90s were worse as we'd nothing to compare it to. I wasn't aware of not having access to music in an instant and CDs seemed as high-tec as anything.

I'm going with the "there's positives and negatives of it" side. Few biggies for me right now are the ability to have contact with family while living abroad via Facebook and having access to so much info for my uni course. I don't really know how I managed when all we had in our library was a couple of books between 60 odd students. Whatsapp is brilliant too as is having instant music.

People using their phones relentlessly while in your company in a restaurant or pub does me head in and I can imagine there's more pressure when it comes to physical appearance now than when I was a teen as it's all online and public now. I miss listening to albums from start to finish now and I think I valued new music more than I do now.


I can only see the positives and negatives because I've lived in both times though. What you don't know won't hurt you 'n' all da.

Into The Blue

All we had was "dads internet" ie aertel.

Redhenrun

You could go off for a month with a rucksack on your back and your parents wouldn't even know what country you were in, much less who you'd met or what you were having for dinner that day. Bliss!

Greengrass1

I didn't have to see pictures of "my healthy breakfast" or dinner.
WHO CARES??

Cupcake_Crisis

I miss getting paper invites to people's parties.

Eugene Norman

Your Superior wrote: »

We didn't have to worry about people posting photos of us on nights out. We actually took the time to see our friends in person. We didn't have mobile phones so would arrange to meet at a certain time, and then actually be there. We didn't seek likes or retweets to validate ourselves. We read books, listened to music, played and watched sport, went to the cinema, even watched TV believe it or not.

We honestly seemed a lot happier and more rounded than people in their teens and 20s today. Less concerned by what others thought of us, as other than your friends, you didn't really give a shït what anyone thought.

Indeed I too used to be with it, then they changed what it was.

I have no idea if kids these days are any more screwed up than in my generation ( late 30's), but they seem to be less fond of graffiti and wrecking the place than we were.

Every generation seems to think that whatever sliver of the life they live is normal and correct, and anything before or after is an abomination. This seems to accelerate when there are major technological changes, but to me things are exactly like they were except some people take photos on Facebook and some don't. If you don't want any of this you can exit Facebook.

anncoates

Bob.Carcass wrote: »

People knocked for each other...I would turn up at a friends house uninvited his mother would open the door and i'd say is "john" coming out to play? You spent hours playing football in a field or on a road,

Assuming you're serious, I hate to break this to you but kids still do this. The practices didn't suddenly die out around 1992.

Eugene Norman

And I am not on Facebook.

SMJSF

Photos were actually pieces of paper that you had to wait days to be developed instead of on a screen, and were only viewable when you visited some ones home.
People bought news papers.
People actually verbally spoke to each other in person.
There wasn't hundreds of smiley faces to show how you were feeling or if you were serious or joking.
The most used processes on your phone was messages, calls and snake.
Computers were used to write documents and for business such as accounting.
Competitions were names written on paper that you had to physically attend a location to enter.
You had more flyers true the mailbox, instead of email and spam.
the list could go on.....

Into The Blue

Eugene Norman wrote: »

And I am not on Facebook.

How do you know if someone is not on facebook?
How do you know if someone hates apple products?
How do you know if someone hates Dublin?

Doris300

**** this thread. Life is exactly the same.

arcticmonkeys

Whats mainly changed for me and I never really thought about it until I've read this post is how little contact I now have with my friends( not so much family relations and such still see plenty of them) but before Bebo or Facebook I would see my friends maybe 3 to 4 times a week (but since and I don't know if this is just me getting older) I maybe see them once in a blue moon, but if I ever want to see how there getting on, how there relationships are, how there getting on at work or how they are in general I wouldn't think lets go see how they are its straight to their Facebook status or latest comment they have posted. Also trying to have a conversation with someone who has their head buried in mobile phone while texting someone else maybe one of the most irritating things ever :mad:.

Plus I really miss the days of going into HMV or Golden Disc wondering about the store trying to waste as much time as possible and actually buying a CD or DVD although it doesn't seem all that long ago now in retrospect .

custard gannet

Your Superior wrote: »

We didn't have to worry about people posting photos of us on nights out. We actually took the time to see our friends in person. We didn't have mobile phones so would arrange to meet at a certain time, and then actually be there. We didn't seek likes or retweets to validate ourselves. We read books, listened to music, played and watched sport, went to the cinema, even watched TV believe it or not.

Yep. Nobody watches TV, reads, plays sport, goes to the cinema, or does anything that doesn't involve staring at laptop screen or smartphone. You sound like one of these people who makes an i'm deleting my Facebook send me your email address status updates every few months but ever actually leaves it.

In response to the OP, most of the rose tinted bull here is just that. Life was no different in all truth, bar maybe that people texted far more constantly back then whereas now they occupy themselves with the news feed. The primary difference I can think of is that people only seemed to start buying digital cameras en masse around 2005, the year that Bebo really took off. Before that they were fairly niche, techno geek devices, and I've always reckoned that it had a fair bit to do with the sale of the cameras in Ireland from 05 on.

Aside from that there is very little difference from the late 90's and the popularization of the mobile.