What was life like before social media?

Lollipop95

if mods could edit thread title, meant to be "what was LIFE like"

This is a genuine question. By social media I mean facebook, twitter, I suppose even boards.ie falls into the category!

Reason I ask is that I'm 20 and I can't really remember a time when I didn't have a social media account! First was Bebo when I was 12, everyone in my school started using it around '07. Then it was onto Facebook aged around 13/14.

For people who were teens/early 20's in the 90s - what was life like before social media giants like Facebook and discussion forums came along?

In my spare time when I'm bored I always check boards or other discussion forums just to have a nose at threads and stuff like that. Or I check my facebook/twitter. Kind of difficult actually to envisage a world in which no form of social media exists! Facebook is of course great for keeping in touch and is cheaper than text messages. I rarely text anyone these days, it's usually just facebook messanger I use

diomed

Too many likes, like.

jjbrien

A easier life

You spent more time outside doing things and less time caring about other people's social lives.

Dozer Dave

Like was more likable.

Birneybau

Fame was earned for the most part.

Your Superior

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.

darkpagandeath

You could go out get pissed and not be shown what actually happened.

Instead of what's in your head "Deleted Scenes"

Lollipop95

How do you edit a thread title?

whiskeyman

asking your ma for money for stamps to write to your hot french penfriend...

Ken Shamrock

People knocked for eachother...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, when you met someone new you were actually interested in getting to know them, people actually had conversations with each other, a phone call was a magical thing and you made the most of it. That's all I can think of off the top of my head from my experience.

boobar

I'm an auld lad.

In my day we had no phones, and I'm not talking mobiles, no landline even.

Technology is great if you use it to keep in contact it's all the inane stuff that irks me.

You know "that face you make when..."

Who gives a sh1t about all that auld guff?

That said I love boards, and probably spend a fair amount of time on facebook so I'm not crying out for a return to the past.

ScumLord

You had stuff left to talk about when you met people face to face.

Fr_Dougal

It was all fields.

OldNotWIse

* When in a restaurant with the OH/friends, you didn't feel a rising irritation as they constantly checked their phones for facebook or whatsapp updates

* On nights out, people actually had fun instead of taking photos to prove to others that they had fun

* One could actually distinguish between females in their teens/twnenties because nobody had heard of that disease where they all make the "I couldn't care less and I'm so surprised" trout face every time a camera comes out

* people took photos of other people and scenes of nature and interesting things rather than just photos of themselves

* If you were sitting across from someone on public transport, your only two options for avoiding an awkward staring contest was a book or the window

* Babies had privacy for more than the first 17 minutes of their lives

* People actually ate their food without taking photos of it first

* You had to carry around a little printed bus timetable with you to know when the next one was due

* We survived without knowing who had just hit the gym/drank a smoothie/toilet trained their kid/groomed their dog etc

* We had to use real words to express how we felt rather than letting emoticons do the job for us

* People possessed an unfathomable skill of face to face communication involving speaking, hand gestures and facial expressions in real time

SEPT 23 1989

We had great music to listen to and the drugs were exceptional

the only bit of technology a kid needed was a good stereo

diomed

There was the Culchie Invasion, a bit like the Zombie Apocalypse, but with different accents.

MrWalsh

It was less stressful. You could go for a long walk and no one could contact you. We didnt even have a house phone when I was growing up so no one could contact me anyway unless they physically showed up at the door or wrote to me.

There was no rubbish constantly popping up in your life, people were not continuously obsessed by the whereabouts of Larry Murphy, 10 top tips to get rid of belly fat, there wasnt a constant stream of motivational memes (sometimes badly spelled) popping up in your face daily.

When you met someone you hadnt seen in a while you had a good catch up with them instead of saying to them that youd seen on FB that theyd climbed a mountain, had a baby, gotten drunk last weekend....

Those annoying people who over share their lives only annoyed you in person from time to time rather than daily.

It was peaceful.

c_man

Your Superior wrote: »

Less concerned by what others thought of us, as other than your friends, you didn't really give a shït what anyone thought.

Oh c'mon, that's not remotely true.

rossie1977

we have all become our parents/grandparents...

"things were so much better in my day"

valoren

People actually witnessed events with their own eyes instead of gawping through their phones camera.

libelula

If it's that bad, would ye not just turn yer phones off for a while?

Doctor DooM

Don't believe the hype.

We wasted crap tonnes of time waiting on your one friend who always showed up late because you couldn't text him telling him where you were heading.

Phoning people was expensive and you couldn't do anything else because you were stuck in your hallway.

It was harder to take photos and save memories of big events, and harder again to share them with others.

It was mad difficult to organise groups to do anything because you couldn't just create a facebook event and use that.

If you had a niche interest it was a lonely world as it was difficult to find others into your pass times (unless of course you liked football, which was the end all and be all).

The downsides are true too, but honestly, we'd have been the same if we'd access to social media. You grow confident as you mature, not because you have 1000 likes on FB.

5star02707

Most kids would be outside playing actual games and not on computers / phones / tablets.

Arsemageddon

We all went to the pub a lot more often during the week to meet up with people.

smash

Lollipop95 wrote: »

I'm 20 and I can't really remember a time when I didn't have a social media account!

It might sound like nostalgic bullshít but I kind of feel sad for your generation because of this. I can see it with some of my younger cousins at family events, they'll be sitting 15ft away from each other and text or snap chatting among themselves and I just don't get it.

cml387

When I was young I thought the future would have flying cars and colonies on Mars.
It seems we took a wrong turn somewhere and devoted our scientific resources to inventing better ways of sending pictures of cats to each other.

Generic Dreadhead

OldNotWIse wrote: »

* On nights out, people actually had fun instead of taking photos to prove to others that they had fun

This sums it up best really.

OldNotWIse

rossie1977 wrote: »

we have all become our parents/grandparents...

"things were so much better in my day"

Hah yes

r93kaey5p2izun

On balance I think we were better off. I think mobiles and the early internet (an information source/basic message boards) were a positive development but it's all gone too far with social media now ruling people's lives.

Ken Shamrock

Doctor DooM wrote: »

Don't believe the hype.

We wasted crap tonnes of time waiting on your one friend who always showed up late because you couldn't text him telling him where you were heading.

Phoning people was expensive and you couldn't do anything else because you were stuck in your hallway.

It was harder to take photos and save memories of big events, and harder again to share them with others.

It was mad difficult to organise groups to do anything because you couldn't just create a facebook event and use that.

If you had a niche interest it was a lonely world as it was difficult to find others into your pass times (unless of course you liked football, which was the end all and be all).

The downsides are true too, but honestly, we'd have been the same if we'd access to social media. You grow confident as you mature, not because you have 1000 likes on FB.

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