Asklemmy

The internet in it's heyday, when it was a genuinely thrilling place to find information, and quite a lot of weirdness, and before it was swamped by corporate interests.

I remember starting out with gopher and a paper print out of 'The big dummies guide to the internet' which was a directory of almost every gopher and ftp site (pre web) along with a description of what you'd find there. Then the web came along and things got really good for a while. Once big corporations got involved it all went down hill.

Not having all the silly teenager / young adult bits of their lives documented in videos for all to see.

Bugs hitting the front windshield in extraordinary numbers.

Home ownership

Not all, but most don't seem to have adventures. When I was a kid I'd go off into the woods and build a den or climb a tree, we once spent a whole week trying to dam a stream, god knows why. None of my friends kids go anywhere by themselves, a lot of them do 'forest school' where they'll be taken by adults to a sanitised woodland and taught how to build a teepee with pre cut wood, and it's just not the same thing.

The internet being a "place" you would go to and then leave.

That's almost impossible to do now because everything is so linked to being online.

Getting static shocked by the TV screen.

We used to leave on our bikes for the day (no phones, so basically unreachable). The only rule was you had be back by dinner.

Doing stuff with friends, undocumented.

Setting up your computer before you go to bed to download a demo for a game that's... 20 MB large! Waking up in the morning to inevitably discover the download failed part way through.

Accompanying their loved ones to the departure gate at the airport.

Cleaning out a ball mouse.

My 14 year old son recently picked one up out of this big pile of old computer treasure I was given by a client and said "What's up with this mouse?"

Regular police officers not wearing full body armor and tactical gear.

Waking up early to catch your cartoons. Or as an adult, having to be at the tv at 7 to watch the new episode. Everything will be streamed, thats fine i guess you wont have to worry about missing it. But it takes away the urgency to keep up.

Rushing to the boombox when you hear your new favorite song, to record it to cassette

Burning themselves on a light bulb!

Livable planet :)

Their 60's.

Winter

1. Privacy

2. Peace & Quiet

I cannot reply to a previous comment, due to it not federating here, but the children of 2020s will literally be online from day one!

There are countless parents that are posting pictures of their newborns on social media, on Instagram or Facebook, straight to a server in California, so imagine that every single person whose parents are like oh, I don't care about privacy, I got nothing to hide bro will have at least one photo there.

And it's not only that. They'll just never get to experience how life goes with no computer in sight, with no smartphones, not even cellphones at all. No computer, and more importantly, no internet, just cartoons on TV such as Life with Louie or Courage the Cowardly Dog or the Looney Tunes series. And even more importantly, no social media. None at all. Nothing to distract you from actually living.

the feeling of not being spied on 24-7

The App Store not being filled with predatory trash

Finding a nudie mag in the woods

Not contacting a person until you meet them again at a location you planned the day before.

Not knowing where you are, locating using literal maps.

It boggles my mind how much safety we have today.

Using the internet without everyone and their grandmother spying on them and blocking access to stuff the busybodies don't personally like.

Snow days

The 1900s

And the classic.

Why it's called "Roll down the window".

Having your Internet connection drop because someone picked up the phone.

The good side of an album.

Rewinding a VHS tape.

Wait till the perfect second to hit record on the radio to make a mix tape

Setting the TV to channel 3 to play a video game.

Not being in constant contact with everyone you know, and not having a neverending stream of notifications assaulting you via your phone.

When you got to see relatives who lived far away, you talked about what had been going on in their life because you probably had no idea.

You read, listened to, or watched the news when you wanted to, unless someone you know told you sooner.

If you had to wait somewhere without a book or magazine, you just sat there with your thoughts. During childhood, you learned how to be bored and practice imagining things.

Downloading what you think is a song off a file sharing program only to find out that it's a virus.