What was life like before social media?

Renegade Mechanic

libelula wrote: »

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

This. For me, personally, life is now, pretty much as it was. Boards was the first "social media" I got into and only because Adverts asked me for a "boards account" I didn't have one so I made my own ads account. I then looked at this "boards" and thought it was nice so signed up to it, too and you disabled notifications which was a nice touch. That's it really. Anything else I just see as an extra avenue through which to be tormented. I even turned my phone of in the cinema :eek: :eek:

People disliked that they actually had to text or find me to bother me but I quite liked it. Meant I wasn't interrupted by a tone because some bint thought her newborn child was slightly more adorable than she was half an hour ago.

DublinWriter

Lollipop95 wrote: »

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?

I've been using the Internet since the 80's. Generally, back then, there was much more of a community feel to it.

Now there's such a low signal to noise ratio. I think we've crossed the plateau though, people tend to be copping on and not taking selfies of their lunch anymore.

My general rule of thumb is the more perfect someone's life appears online is inversely proportional to how screwed up it actually is in reality.

Magico Gonzalez

I've often said to my friends that we were lucky we grew up in the pre youtube, pre facebook generation.

You could act the eejit all you wanted, no risk of someone posting a video of you under the influence and submitting you to public ridicule.

Stories were handed down word of mouth, people listened, questioned and got involved in a story over a pint.

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.

padd b1975

Less atheists.

Less people insisting on telling all in sundry that they're atheists.


People could be liberal and tolerant without feeling the need to be seen to be liberal and tolerant.


People were more inclined to mind their own business and didn't feel the need to latch onto some flavour of the month "cause".


Nobody sent "hugs" across cyberspace.


"Hun" was a xenophobic insult.

Sleepy

Arsemageddon wrote: »

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

I think that's more down to the ever increasing price of a pint than social media tbh.

Junkyard Tom

Doctor DooM wrote: »

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

Social media is brilliant for that. Also targeted advertising on Facebucket is a fantastic way of reaching just the right people. I don't know how people did it in t'olden days.

I was chatting with an older gentleman about organising people for sports and he was telling me they used to arrange their local club rugby teams by sending out letters!

Mister Vain

You could go out and party like an animal and not have to worry about seeing photos of yourself on the internet doing something stupid. You could approach the wimmin without having to deal with that huge barrier called a smart phone.

On the downside though, it was probably more difficult to meet people outside of the bars/clubs. Sites like facebook, meetup etc are great for that.

ArtyM

Lots of people looking back with rose tinted specs.
Personally I think it sucked.
Used to take me f**kin ages to call round to all my friends houses just to show them the polaroids of the food I had whenever I went out.

twowheelsonly

The most important thing to bring to a concert was a lighter and you stuck that in the air, not your bloody phone/ipad or whatever.

whatismyname

I never did quite manage to find out that loads of famous people I'd never heard of had died.

diomed

Cats were cats, not media stars.

talla10

Back then all my friends were literally from my estate because if the time and effort it took to call around and get them all out.

Every summer we had a running battle wuth the next estate over for no reason at all.

Good times!

Spunge

pretty much the same for me as it is now. tried facebook for a month in 2008 and that was the end of that.

beks101

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.

Sittingpretty

Honestly it was bliss.

As was life prior to mobile phones.

I'm 38 this year and was 22 before I had my first mobile phone.

Sittingpretty

OldNotWIse wrote: »

* 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

This. All of it.

Currently enduring hourly photographic updates of a friend's holiday in States.

SO close to posting .... Would you ever just enjoy your effing holiday and put the phone AWAY!!!!!

People left the homeless alone. Instead of sitting down with them to hug them, play a guitar and show them how much they really care while getting someone to video this.

Anesthetize

I miss seeing actual physical photographs. I wholly embrace the digital era but photos are one thing which have lost meaning. Nearly all the old photos of my friends and I from the Bebo days are lost, as if they meant nothing.

Forums and chatrooms used to be so much more active and fun. They were the first places people would go online instead of Facebook or Twitter. People staring at their phones is no different than 10 or 15 years ago. Instead people were texting or playing Snake rather than Facebook or WhatsApp.

I joined MySpace in 2005 and that was my introduction to the whole concept of social networking. For me it was new and exciting. Now I groan at the thought of Facebook and avoid it as much as possible.

lertsnim

5star02707 wrote: »

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

The Sega Megadrive and Sony Playstation were extremely popular long before social media.

beks101 wrote: »

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

Atlantic 252 wasn't a pirate radio station.

Saipanne

Lollipop95 wrote: »

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

You can't remember before you were 12?

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.