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The 19th century brought people the industrial revolution and a new way of life. The railways, for example, completely transformed travel and those born towards the end of the Napoleonic wars (in another kind of baby boom) grew up to be much more reform-minded.
But these changes were much harder for the older generation. However, they just kept coming.
There's an obvious parallel with today: technology is reshaping the world, forcing us to constantly keep up, adapt, and leave the past for the history books.
Interested in the gaps formed by the latest developments, Redditor u/Bagolyvagymi asked this question: "What's something that newer generations will never understand?" And users flooded the post with answers. As of this article, it has 4.9K comments. Here are some of the most upvoted ones.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Being able to be an idiot in your formative years and not worry about it being filmed and/or put on the internet forever
chi-wei shen 3 years ago
That's the biggest advantage of the 20th century. People nowadays are not dumber than 50 years ago but today everyone can see it.
RELATED:
#2
There was a time when we felt the world was getting better, not worse.
u/Bagolyvagymi makes all sorts of posts on Reddit, but this was the one that has gained the most attraction yet. "The day I posted the question, I came across some old books and stuff from 30-40 years ago, like VHS tapes and old computer guides, and the question just popped into my head," they told Bored Panda.
"The funny thing is that I'm actually a part of the described 'newer generations', being 17. It always fascinated me to think about technology back in the day when it was a pretty big deal and most people had to accommodate these new innovations into their lives. For me, it came so easily because I grew up with phones and computers, although I only started using them later on in my life at like 10 years of age."
#3
Slamming down the receiver on a landline telephone. Pushing the red button is not nearly as satisfying.
Premislaus de Colo 3 years ago
Oh yes, that one I miss dearly. The difference is like slamming the door in someone's face vs. pushing the elevator button really hard
#4
The beauty of being unreachable.
Katie Lutesinger 3 years ago
I turn my phone off every night at ten, and it stays off until I get up in the morning. I don't care if aliens just nuked Parliament House; it can wait until tomorrow. After ten is Me Time.
#5
Saturday morning cartoons. I miss sitting in front of the TV and eating a bowl of cereal while Tale Spin, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or whatever Saturday morning cartoon series played. Then getting on my bike once they ended around 10 a.m. and riding over to my friend's house to play till sunset.
As Mary Meehan beautifully put it, teenagers are an invention of recent history, morphing over the years from chaperoned innocents to malt shop boppers, from hippy protesters to latchkey kids, all the way down to today's digital natives.
"Maybe it's because of their fresh perspective on the world and their sense of immortality, but teenagers serve as cultural mirrors," Meehan wrote in Forbes. "They reflect our shifting society in ways other life stages don't."
She also acknowledges the effect of technological innovations on social change, and agrees that the internet is what the television was for the boomer era, exposing a young generation to new ideas and the real world.
#6
Taking pictures and then waiting for them to be developed to see if they turned out okay.
AnnaBanana 3 years ago
And because of that, you paid a lot more attention to what you were photographing. And you made actual albums of the best photos. I miss those days, so many photos are never even looked at more than once these days.
#7
MTV played music videos, had music discussion shows, and had news about music 24 hours a day at one point.
Daria B 3 years ago (edited)
And cartoons. In my time at least. Anime included. But that came later. It was still really good stuff, like Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion, Slam Dunk, Blue Submarine n.6, Escaflowne, Master Mosquiton, Excel Saga, and many other wonderful titles. With a bit of censorship, though, but still worth it. And MTV had competitors as well, which made it even better for us audiences.
#8
Having to buy the entire album to get one song you liked, or else wait for it to come on the radio and record it. Missing any part of the song was unacceptable, and you had to wait until it was played again.
u/Bagolyvagymi said it was pretty hard to keep up with all the answers their post has received, but there are some things that were pretty common. "Obviously, everyone was watching TV back in the day, and it had the usual limitations like ad breaks or if you didn't catch your show, you never got the chance to see that episode again. I also noticed that using the internet was a whole other story," they explained what they learned.
At the end of the day, the Redditor believes that different generations can in fact speak the same language "because after all, there is a period when we live together in the same world." We just have to adapt to one another a bit better!
#9
Parents not knowing where their kids are and trusting them not to get into trouble.
#11
Not being able to watch whatever you wanted whenever you wanted. We actually had to look up the shows schedule in a TV guide and be available when it came on.
Karl Baxter 3 years ago
In the UK in the 70s and 80s decent films were only shown at Xmas and the rest of the year was pretty much a film drought unless you count the 1940s b/w musicals shown on Saturday afternoons aimed at pensioners.
#12
Hows about not knowing who was calling... was it your crush? your grandma? a telemarketer??? It's like a game show every time the phone rings
#13
Having to rewind the tape before returning it to the video store or else incurring a fee.
#14
How to use the card catalog in the library — the ones with the cards in the drawers.
over it already 3 years ago
I want one of these for my hardware in the garage. They are beautiful pieces of furniture.
#18
Circling pictures of toys in the Sears catalog as a Christmas list. My brother and my cousin would do this every year at my grandma's house. We also put our initials so our parents knew who wanted what toy.
Pilot Chick 3 years ago
Was just thinking how much easier Christmas shopping would be if my niece could circle things in the wishbook.
#19
Meeting up with a friend at the movies and having no way to communicate once you’ve left the house. Your friend doesn’t show. Is he coming? Should I continue to wait and stand at the precise spot we agreed on? Has he died? Did he forget? I’ll call home using a pay phone and hope my mom is there to tell me whether he left a message on the answering machine.
Lav Oravaf 3 years ago
I am Gen X, had my first mobile phone at 26. Before that, met friends, travelled the world, drove to places I didnt know. I miss every single thing of not being online/virtually reachable. But hey every generation has its own thing, so I guess it's ok ;)
#20
A thing called encyclopedias
Kat Rob 3 years ago
Ugh trying to write school papers and the only encyclopedias available are ancient and the information is no longer correct. Having to keep a list of topics for the one day every two weeks you can go to the library where their encyclopedias are marginally less out of date. I looooove that now I want to know something I can just look it up.
#22
How we got around without GPS navigation.
#24
Having to properly time getting a drink and snack before the ad break on TV finished. I still sweat thinking about it.
Premislaus de Colo 3 years ago
Now you can safely go and get coffe while the ad lasts... From a gas station... In another state
#25
Maybe not universal. But how to entertain yourself with your mind and nothing else.
I've noticed something about my friends/people i know in parenting culture where it's now a crime for a child to be bored. When I was a kid my parents laughed and told me to go away when I said I was bored.
#27
Cranking the rear window in a car by hand
#28
missing an episode of a show meant MISSING IT FOREVER. There's still an episode of "Battlestar Galactica" I never saw. I could go back and watch it now, but 10 year old me hurt like a gunshot wound for a long time after missing that thing.
A B C 3 years ago
I just recently found a series (The Vision of Escaflowne) online that I used to watch almost every friday night somewhen in the early 2000s. I never saw the last 2-3 episodes back then, and now that I did, I wish I didn't. I remembered the series so fondly, but the end was just... shallow. I didn't like it, and now I wished I could unsee it and just remember the series from back then.
#30
The difficulty of not being able to instantly find the answer to questions.
Louloubelle 3 years ago
But how much fun was it to go to the library to find out? With the added bonus of not actually going to the library, but meeting up with your boyfriend on a school night.😉
#32
As a kid I read my favorite books more than a hundred times.
#33
'Let’s all meet back here at 6:00.' *Looks at watch.* 'I’ve got 4:35. What time do you have?'
Brian Bennett 3 years ago
I am old and was a nurse - nurses in those days were never without a watch. they were also given as graduation presents. But I've come a long way baby my watch now has a battery no winding oh yes it also has the date - proud to be so modern! (sarcasm intended)
#34
Having to say BRB to all your friends on MSN because your mom wanted to make a call, and then having to disconnect from the internet and dial back up when she was done.
#35
The glory of playing and enjoying snake on a brick phone.
#36
Having to wait until Monday at school to tell your friends about the crazy s**t that went down at the party over the weekend. I used to love that. There was nothing like saying “bro, guess what happened”!? Now everyone just instantly sees in it happening in real time on social media.
#37
Turning the dial on the TV to change the channel.
Thorfin Wolfsbane 3 years ago
TV repair in my house consisted of smacking the tv until it worked.
#38
Not being able to binge a show unless you literally recorded a bunch of episodes from TV onto a bunch of VHS tapes.
#39
Texting without looking at your phone because -> abc def ghi jkl mno pqrs tuv wxyz
#40
Making plans to meet friends and having to commit because you didn't have mobile phones to ask where they were, how far, and if they were still coming.
#41
Privacy.
Thorfin Wolfsbane 3 years ago (edited)
person gets social media apps. person posts on social media apps about every detail of their life. person complains "why don't I have privacy!?!?" There use to be a time we thought the government would spy on us, now we pay private companies to spy on us.
#43
The perfect balance between playing outside and watching TV.
#44
Going to the arcade and playing games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. This is my childhood.
Karl Baxter 3 years ago
In my case it was going to the arcade to play this new hi-tech game called “Space Invaders”
#45
How great Myspace was. It was a million times better than Facebook. You could choose top friends, music, cursors, backgrounds, and images. It was awesome until everyone transitioned over to FB.
What do you think ?
Gary 3 years ago
What about driving around in the hot summer with NO air conditioning in the car.
WilvanderHeijden 3 years ago
You'd wind down the windows and get jelled at because of the dust and flies and the noise of wind in the car.
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Diana Eriksson 3 years ago
So, unpopular opinion. A lot of these still apply if you grow up poor. I'm 18 and can relate to a lot of these; waiting for commercials to grab snacks, being bored, not having a phone, staying off social media, only being reachable IRL, etc. Not everyone even today can afford these things.
Bill Evs 3 years ago (edited)
I grew up pretty poor and I get the point you make about being bored. However I found that with less choices you had to be more imaginative to entertain yourself. When I was a kid in the 80's/90's I read and drew and painted a lot more than I do now, sadly.
Load More Replies... 
Nicola Roberts 3 years ago
How about Christmas toys that you need to spend an hour removing ties and fixtures. Just so you can get it out of the box to put the batteries in.
Load More Replies... Gary 3 years ago
What about driving around in the hot summer with NO air conditioning in the car.
WilvanderHeijden 3 years ago
You'd wind down the windows and get jelled at because of the dust and flies and the noise of wind in the car.
Load More Replies... Diana Eriksson 3 years ago
So, unpopular opinion. A lot of these still apply if you grow up poor. I'm 18 and can relate to a lot of these; waiting for commercials to grab snacks, being bored, not having a phone, staying off social media, only being reachable IRL, etc. Not everyone even today can afford these things.
Bill Evs 3 years ago (edited)
I grew up pretty poor and I get the point you make about being bored. However I found that with less choices you had to be more imaginative to entertain yourself. When I was a kid in the 80's/90's I read and drew and painted a lot more than I do now, sadly.
Load More Replies... Nicola Roberts 3 years ago
How about Christmas toys that you need to spend an hour removing ties and fixtures. Just so you can get it out of the box to put the batteries in.
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