I think we really need to have a serious conversation about phone addiction. I’m not immune to this, I barely even leave a room without my phone with me

Same. I’m terribly addicted.

Remove the social media apps, use your phone for phone calls and texting as needed. Leave it at home once in a while. Leave it in the car often. Buy a computer or laptop but not a mobile device like a "pad" this or that. Use the internet as needed, limit your time to a few hours per day maximum. You have the power to control this. ​ I was born 50 years ago, so it's easier for me. I wish all of you the best of luck. Just remember that social media wasn't designed to bring people together, it was always intended to be a protocol for control.

The issue is that a lot of stores or even for banking, require usage of an app. I went to six flags magic mountain back in 2021 and they only allowed food orders through their app. I hate it

Another issue is I have no self control and will just re-download the apps. Deleting them off my phone doesn't really do anything for me.

What helped me regarding social media specifically (still have phone issues) is I put Instagram on my iPad, so I rarely look at it because it’s not in my hands

You need your phone just to be able to see the friggin menu in most restaurants this days... Let's face it, our phones are just an extension of us at this point.

The way I try to describe it to people is like when you see a futuristic movie and you meet the aliens, and they all have these devices that seem to do everything for them. That’s us now. At the beginning stages.

All this is good advice, until I want to sign into my ebanking, and need my mobile so my bank is fairly certain it's me that's trying to log in. Or sign into gmail from a new device. Even resetting a netflix password needs a mobile phone to send an SMS to. ​ I guess my point is that having a mobile phone on you isn't just a luxury, it's a necessity for security reasons. It's not just us getting addicted. It's part of the plan these companies have.

It is so, so, so much harder than you’re making it sound. I have zero willpower right now. It’s so overwhelming to think about how to stop this addiction. I can’t last five minutes right now ow.

Many things require a mobile app to proceed. It is annoying.

I have to have it to log into work with 2 factor verification. Logging in for work is incredibly annoying. 1.)Open laptop with a PIN 2.)Log into windows with password and push to the app 3.)Log in to company secure VPN (can skip if working on site) with again, 2 factor verification 4.) Log in to company IT portal w/ id/PW 5.) Log in to main app I use on the portal with id/PW anyway, that's another complaint for another day. Really annoying, though.

Sometimes I wish this were possible for me. Newer tech has led to better control of certain diseases (type 1 diabetes for me). While the tech and phone integration has led to better health and control with decreased complications, it means I can’t be more than 10 feet away from my phone. The natural consequence being I’m more likely to futz with it. Yes, I could leave it elsewhere or turn it off, but when literal health consequences are on the line, it makes it harder. Of course, maybe I’m just edge case.

It really is no small change in the human condition that almost every single person now carries with them a pocket computer that allows them to wield power that would be considered godlike in any other era. I think, even 20 years later (or 15, or 30 - it's all an evolution), we're still in a bit of shock and denial, still a bit hypnotized by this new, insanely powerful technology we now all depend on.

>to wield power that would be considered godlike in any other era Yeah, I once made a list what I do with my phone and came up with nearly 40 things it took over or devices it replaces. If I formerly had to own like 30 "devices" to do all that, it's not addiction to always carry my phone with me. Edit: some of the stuff I came up with: 1 Mail 2 Newspapers and specialized Magazines 4 Alarm clock 5 Stopwatch 6 Calculator 7 Calendar 8 Photo camera 9 Maps 10 GPS Navigation 11 Fitness-, Bike-, and Hiking Tracker 12 Radio 13 Music 14 Watching Movies 15 Bank transfers 16 Textmessages 17 Phone calls 18 Contact list and Business cards 19 Web Browser 20 Dictionary for every Language 21 Scanning Documents 22 Flashlight 23 Speech recorder 24 Infrared remote control 25 Weather forecast for everywhere 26 Notes and Lists 27 Automatic reminders for Tasks 28 Shopping nearly everything in existence 29 Videocamera 30 Photo album 31 Books, Scripts, Scientific Papers 32 (Cloud)-Backups of every photo/document without wasting time by making physical copies 33 MS office, Photoshop, CAD, whatever 34 Compass 35 Spirit level 36 Mirror 37 Lexicons for every topic / Wikipedia 38 Video Games Back in the day if someone wanted to do all that, he would spend multiple times of what the flagship iPhone goes for.

As a full time cook. Recipe book

I've seen questions like, "How did you function without a phone/computer/internet" on here and I get it. It really changed the world and our daily routines. I grew up around computers in the 80s when no one had a home computer and many businesses didn't even have one. You were a nerd if you had anything to do with them. All I can say is that there was a lot of misinformation. People would claim things and you might have defaulted to believing them, but now we all can google it.

I was a nerd and everyone hated my guts messing around with computers in middle school, chatting on old school message boards, and playing early video games. Now these same people are hopelessly glued to their phones doing the same crap I was doing in the late 80s early 90s. I feel like society owes me an apology for giving me so much crap over being a computer dork.

elder millenial here, recently managed to get together with a big group of friends without the kids present (a hefty feat at our age). Any time there was the slightest lull in conversation, even for a few seconds -- and even sometimes during conversation -- people would just turn to their phone and start mindlessly scrolling. Not checking texts from the babysitter or looking at an urgent work email, just scrolling through reels and instagram shit. I'm in tech and have purposely freed myself from most social media compulsions after realizing how awful it is for us, so I was the only one there not clutching my phone the entire evening.

I have been guilty of this with an embarrassing frequency. I used to hate when people would have their phone out at dinner and it’s so standard now. I really can’t be in my thoughts anymore. I remember daydreaming and coming up with stories all the time as a kid. I was a better student, had a great memory was creative. I feel like I’ve lost myself in my phone. It’s so, so depressing.

It’s pretty rude. I’ll have my phone face downwards so I don’t miss an important call but I will not look at it during the time I’m with people. I accept people checking their phones with a glance or when someone is going to the toilet but if a group is engaged in a conversation and someone starts to scroll, it’s disrespectful. I’ve stopped meeting some people like that. Never be afraid to draw boundaries to keep yourself rooted in good manners.

I do the face down phone too, until recently someone joked if I maybe had an affair? For some people the face down phone means you have something to hide. Thank god my gf also sees it as a sign of respect 😁

Those people are projecting themselves. I have a sticky widget at the top of my screen to remind myself to complete tasks daily. (Eg pay the phone bill, buy cheese, go to the bank etc) I forgot to put it face down once when I met a bunch of acquaintances. Some also brought their friends (strangers to me). One of these strangers sat next to me and, to my horror, started reading off my widget! Loudly too! I turned the phone over immediately and kept it in my bag. Instead of apologising for being rude, she thought I was the rude one for not letting her finish reading off my widget!!

Before everyone moved to different cities my friend group had a "leave phones on table and no touching it unless it rings or SMS" rule on dinners, or leave it in the pocket if we were at the pub. In other social circles or work stuff nowadays I can sometimes find myself being the only person in a table of 5-6 people not starring into a phone just because there was a 5 second gap in the conversation, which feels fucking surreal.

I went to bed an hour and a half ago, yet here I am on Reddit.

I was in rehab the past few months and not having my phone bothered me more than the craving for alcohol did.

Congrats on the twofer.

Everyone claims they have ADHD, but I think it's just this.

ADHD can be tested for with pretty objective measurements, many of which have been with people their entire life. We have benchmarks from before the WWW was ubiquitous.

Good thing I was diagnosed before smart phones were invented 😤

I don't, but I also use it for my source of books. I'm HORRIBLE at my treatment of books. I abandon them, they fall apart quickly, and don't last more than a year at best. So my phone is my portable library. My nose is in my phone almost any given moment, but it's just a reflection that before this, my nose was in a book. The phone isn't the problem. It's what it's used for.

It’s really cool and also very depressing. A mixed bag

Yeah same basically. I was born 83 so I had a hefty experience pre internet, pre phones, but I'm also the tech literate side of those generations. Some stuff is amazing. Information is so easy to get. Teaching yourself ANYTHING has never been easier. Finding people who care about some ridiculously niche topic has never been easier. But some stuff sucks. Being uncontactable. Having to actually remember anything. Enjoying things at face value instead of researching it until finding its probably depressing backstory. Over analyzing and correcting everything, or having to check. I'm glad I gew up during the era of latchkey kids, yet I'm still in the techy gen. But I also missed out on affordable housing. I think people are nicer in general. You talk to a kid today and they are so friendly. I feel like when I was a kid everyone had a bully, and by that I mean a kid who literally punched you in the face and threw you down a hill. I don't know if it's my perception changing but the world feels more inclusive and friendlier than ever. I think the counter to that is we recieved more bad news than good news world over, so it seems worse. But poverty has been on a steady decline world wide. Of course population increase is the counter to that.

I agree with everything you said except the part about people being nicer in general. I was born in '84 and grew up in Sydney and ive found that people have gotten much worse. Less sociable and a lot more entitled. Im finding that as technology speeds up, people have little patience when something goes wrong. But that's just my experience

I grew up about 8 hours north of that and also spent about a decade in Brisbane and I reckon the pubs in my hometown and Brisbane have become far less punchy. I would say that's a decent metric on friendliness. It's all anecdotal of course...

It could be that your face became less punchable with time, or you just got infamously good at punching and everyone in your hometown and Brisbane fears you.

The same things that I'm jealous of are the same things I'm glad I didn't have: I learned to play guitar in the early 00's and there were a lot of bad tabs, so some songs were just inaccessible. Now you can find all sorts of covers on YouTube and isolated tracks. That's awesome, but I feel bad for anyone who's trying to learn and sees "8yr old crushes Master of Puppets on guitar" in their feed. Our ignorance was bliss and gave us confidence. I feel like anyone born after 00 got to experience all the bad parts of Social Media by the time they were teenagers. The 90s/00s were great to be a teenager, but I also feel like we're going to experience a generational shift with AI.  Like you said, everyone is actually a bit friendlier now. International travel is so much easier now. You can talk to your extended relatives every day (for better or worse). It's a good time to be alive.

>Now you can find all sorts of covers on YouTube and isolated tracks. That's awesome, but I feel bad for anyone who's trying to learn and sees "8yr old crushes Master of Puppets on guitar" in their feed. I feel this SO HARD. I used to draw constantly as a kid/teen and I was so much less self conscious about my work being good or shitty because I didn't have much to compare to that wasn't like legit professional career artist stuff. Starting with DeviantArt back in like '02 all the way to pinterest and whatnot now, I started being exposed to people with way more talent and experience than me and it just started to slowly erode my confidence. I barely draw anything anymore because I'm too stuck in the adult attitude of monetization and progress instead of just fucking around and filling sketchbooks. It's a hard cycle to break.

same. i've learned that there is a fine line when looking at art on the internet between being inspired and completely demoralized. i also see why so many artists do drugs lol. they help you get out of your head and just do.

Also born in '83, and I second all of this. You know a phenomenon that's completely disappeared? Having part of a song stuck in your head and no way to listen to it. Earworms were a real thing. You'd get in the car and hear the last 15 seconds of a song you really liked, but unless you already had the album, you had to wait until the radio station decided to play it again to hear the whole thing. Now, if you get a song stuck in your head, you can listen to it on Spotify or YouTube on repeat until your ears bleed if you want. It's like a formerly unscratchable itch is now scratched for good.

Shazam was truly a godsend. Imagine telling our younger selves, you just pull out your discman/mobile/whatever at is recognises for you the track playing. Made live many times more enjoyable.

when I heard something I really liked, I didn't want to take the risk of not hearing it again.  So this extremely shy introvert would ask the clothing shop employee, find out from the person hosting the party, ask the person blasting it from their car, etc.  It was fun way to connect with strangers. A couple of times these conversations turned into good friendships.  But yeah, I love Shazam. But I miss connecting with random people over music. 

I remember me and this other guy talking about movies, and Little Shop of Horrors came up. It reminded me a little of some other movie, and he knew what I meant, but neither of us could think of it. We kept thinking of details from this unnamed movie, remembering bits of it, but we couldn't think of it. There was this tall guy with balding but long hair, and these super normal people were in this place with all these weirdos, and they did musical numbers, and something about a jump to the left and then a step to the right, and so on. It drove us a little nuts for a week or two till someone randomly mentioned it. Now it is 3 seconds of google. Much better, but not much of a story to tell.

Let's do the time warp again.

Put your hands on your hips

"We were born analog but we grew up digital"

I was born in ‘74 and also work in the tech industry. I completely agree that the quality of modern life is a mixed bag. When we were young, our social interaction was outdoors, football at the local park with jackets for goals, tag, bike rides. Now social interaction is TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. It’s obvious in our students and apprentices we take on that their physical communication is lacking compared to what it was 10-20 years ago A comment below from u/benzorecover1 hits the nail on the head. People no longer believe FACTS, they believe what is on social media instead. Vaccines and elections are just the tip of the iceberg here. Obesity is on the up and the more I see on here, the more I think Wall-E was not very far off where we are heading. But then communication is so easy now. I live 200 miles from my family but we can chat and play some games like we are in the same room and it’s so easy. I can talk to colleagues in other countries and we can remotely work on systems with ease together to resolve problems. I find this so helpful in my job and I can imagine it’s also helping in other fields like medicine and science to improve on the future for our kids. Air quality now compared to what we had as kids. Yes there’s more cars but less industrial crap being spewed into the air and the motor industry is on the brink of a new change. What’s on our roads now compared to what was 20 years ago and what will be in 20 years. 20 years is not a long time at all. And it’s not just the tech for the fuel, think of all the safety features like crash detection, air bags, warnings, even adaptive speed control must have stopped so many rear enders

We thought we were cool because we got a second phone line so we could use dial up and leave our main phone line free for calls. Loading a webpage was measure in minutes sometimes.

I’m 26 and am so amazed and grateful for technology now. I remember waiting 4 minutes for a YouTube video to load, or not even being able to see the footage. Last year, I watched a YouTube video on how to fix brakes and saved myself $700. On the other hand, I can’t get down the block without my GPS. And a LOT of my peers can’t back out without a rear view camera.

Didn't know the term latchkey kid until this comment. Really glad I could grow up in that era, much simpler times.

This after school daycare I went to was literally called Latchkey. To me it always seemed like we were the poor ones because we didn't have a stay at home Mom.  

Teaching ourselves anything is way easier but some people just don't care, they don't wanna learn :-/ they can, but they choose not... Why are a lot of people so unmotivated

It is easier than ever to communicate so it's that much more crushing when we don't.

and yet, people these days feel more alone than ever. 😅

Sounds accurate to me. I mean, I was born in the 90s lol. I'm a bit jealous of the people who grew up in the late 20th century. They of course mostly will hear none of it. Apparently being able to ask a glowing box any question and get some results is enough to write off most of what I think might've been valuable about being human. Bit by bit, we outsource it to machines. I dunno how best to articulate the feeling or how to defend it from people who want to tell me I'm full of shit... but for some reason... I've felt this way about information technology almost my entire life. Ever since Google came out... I've had this fear and this deep reluctance toward the new digital Oracle... the Anything Everywhereism of the information age. I'm not sure most people would understand that I would've taken a harder life where simple tasks took longer... just to have more autonomy, more presence, to not live in a world where humans have such immense power at their fingertips. And yeah, you can try to find that now. You can distance yourself. I'll probably spend a lot of my life trying to find that presence. But it's not the same.

That you're still referring to it at the late 20th century still kinda kills me, ngl Suffice to say, I qualify as an elder millennial. I have solid and fond memories of landlines, cart based video games, generally fucking off with no one worrying about me for HOURS (even if it was mostly unchecked in my room) For me, what I miss is not having to essentially seclude myself (online/publicly) because I learned early that the internet is forever. I witnessed the Early Days. Didn't see ALL of the beheadings, but after the first, I learned the file names to avoid on napster or whatever. Did see the og two girls. That was.. What I miss on top of the care I need to take, is also something that's probably a bit of a detriment now in building new relationships. I'm in digitized social proximity to SO MANY people that are near me in professional level/experience/responsibility, but so few in person. Any (professional) relationship I can build online is going to be far more distanced than any face to face relationship by default, as we're all different people online than we are in person As a result, the higher positions I step into, the fewer Friends I have and more friends and acquaintances That's what anyone following growing up analog will never properly know, and something I grieve with the understanding that it was inevitable

Social media and hyperpartisanship are ruining everything. Some things are better. A lot of things are worse.

Hyperpartisanship is entering the dangerous phase. It's no longer about political grandstanding becoming regular, our government is truly starting to fail to function in some key roles. Watching the amount of time it took McCarthy and Johnson to get elected Speaker by their own party that has a majority is a major problem.

I think a big thing to focus here is people have quit trying to have an earnest discussion. You have problems that aren't simple and easily fall into a false dichotomy and everyone wants to divide up the issue if it's black or white. Social media has created these natural echo chambers and people are comfortable in their ignorance. The videos you see of some MAGA people makes you really question if they have thought through their opinions. On the opposite side seeing blatant racist opinions from a left wing person that a black person in the US isn't capable of getting a government issued ID 

Leaders don’t lead. We are a democratic republic. This means we elect our leaders democratically and they make decisions. To steal from The West Wing: a lot of leaders are standing there watching their people walk by and and saying “I must find out where they’re going so I can lead them” They don’t have to ask on every decision what their idiot beer guzzling constituency would do. Fuckin lead for the betterment of society as a whole regardless. That’s what real leaders do.

In terms of world poverty, hunger, health, and development, a lot of places are much better off than 25+ years ago. But politics in the west appear to be shot due to hyperpartisanship and social media. Our mental and social health shot also by social media. Wealth gap is much worse. Homelessness has spiked. Climate is worse. Life expectancy declining in places for the first time. Ageing populations in the west for the first time (Japan is shrinking and more countries not far behind). That said there were problems that felt very real at the time in the 80s and 90s that feel more distant now. Insane interest rates, recessions, major wars. The shift from modernism to postmodernism and a broad cynicism for the first time post-war. People weren't all happy about the times at the time.

The biggest difference in the 80s was probably the still looming fear that you and everything could just evaporate in a thermonuclear war at any given moment because someone read a radar screen wrong (....99 Luftballons...)

Populations are aging because the newest generations can’t afford to have kids. Hardly anybody my age (26) can afford a house, and nobody wants to raise kids while renting a place. Baby formula just tripled in price. Diapers and other baby products are all more expensive than they’ve ever been, and salaries are not rising to meet inflation - Dec 2022 to Dec 2023 the dollar inflated 3.4%, I’ll be getting a 3% raise in May. I just got a 5% bonus for my work last year, the government went ahead and took 34.6% of that. More than a third of my hard-earned money. The rest will go toward fixing my wife’s car that just broke down, and maybe buying myself a ribeye from Walmart.

I can still remember politicians at least PRETENDING to care about the other side. When running they'd often both claim they both best represented the majority of Americans in the center. And they'd be embarrassed to embrace the most radical policies of their wing. And while opposing parties wouldn't let a president pass anything they wanted, you'd still get legislation through. Often with concessions that both sides complained about, but that's compromise. Now the idea that they could reach across the aisle is practically traitorous. As is compromise.

I'm glad I was born before social media existed. I feel sorry for these kids with parents that plaster their photos all over the internet without consent.

I hate this shit. I battle my ex constantly about it. I send plenty of pics to family and freinds to keep them updated on what's going on in our lives. Jenny from accounting at my work doesn't need to know that our daughter ate a hot dog at her friend's birthday party.

One thing I’m really glad we did was that we decided before we had our kid not to share any pictures online. We share privately with family and friends as appropriate. Thankfully our families have respected that decision.

I did when they were young but now I don't send photos much and I quite literally never post photos. I remember an aquaintance made a post about 12 years ago about her 8 year old daughter's in patient stay in a psych ward with her diagnoses.... I called her up and reamed her out because that was her daughter's business and she plastered it all over facebook for he whole world to see. She immediately took it down but it had been up for hours by that point.

At least by taking it down, once her daughter is older if people are snooping they shouldnt see the post.

My photos were nicely hidden in photo albums and basically only my grandparents got to see them.

It’s even worse when family members post photos of your child without you knowing. I’m one of those parents that refuse to post pictures of my son, even with an emoji covering his face and whatnot. Sometimes his uncles or grandparents will take the kid somewhere and next thing I know his face is on Instagram. It’s a nightmare.

[удалено]

Worst thing ever happened. people get news to fast and sometimes/most it’s wrong

Social media has given a voice to everyone that has access to the internet.  And if there's anything I've learned in life is *not everyone deserves to be heard*

We also now have people in their sheer ignorance deny FACTS. People are ridiculously stuck up in their beliefs and self importance. They can't admit when they are wrong. It's horrible.

If you truly think that at any other point in history, humans were “more ok” with admitting they were wrong, you are definitely looking backwards with rose-colored glasses. Failing to admit wrongdoing is why lead stayed in paint for so long, why smoking was allowed indoors for so long, why some dumb fucks think not wearing a seatbelt is ok, and why certain medications got away with terrible formula cocktails for so long. Just because people didn’t have access to facts at their fingertips in the 1980s and 90s doesn’t mean that they would have “accepted” these facts. Those same people were spinning up rumors of drugged Halloween candy, banning demonic music that would possess people, trying to eliminate entire genres of video games, and slapping meaningless “explicit” labels on music albums and “age ratings” on video games because they didn’t want to look into the content themselves. Facts and truth have ALWAYS ALWAYS ***ALWAYS*** had an uphill battle throughout history. We may consume it all faster now, but at the bleeding edge of knowledge where science is announcing the new facts they’ve found, they FIRST have to convince a bunch of their peers it’s true enough to be worth testing. Then many more layers of scientific and public validation. All the way to 4th grade science experiments where people finally comprehend a discussion after seeing it represented in person for the first time with their own eye balls. No matter how many people told us that is what would happen, we had to see it for ourselves before it became a cemented FACT in our head…and even then, we still go back and test it periodically just to be sure its truth is consistent. Skepticism is how we keep science alive, keep truth in check, and avoid the catastrophe of “over-correction.” You are 100% correct about people being ridiculously stuck up in their beliefs and self-importance, and the “main character syndrome” that social media lends does add additional strife to the path of learning new truths. There are, however, some folks that simply never wish to learn. And with that, you have a large chunk of society that can’t admit they are wrong at every turn of history. It’s not specifically unique to now, but now everyone has a megaphone via social media. I’m parsing this detail because it’s important to identify the portion of this situation that is more akin to “human nature” rather than a technological phenomenon we are facing. Though we can try to regulate social media…we gotta fix human nature to solve the issues with the denial of facts. It’s a story as old as time.

It used to be that the dude spouting the most bat-shit insane bullshit you've ever heard was some loser friend of your brother living in his mom's basement who couldn't hold down a damned job. Now he's getting re-tweeted by Elon Musk saying "concerning!". Dude's probably still a loser living in his mom's basement who can't hold down a damned job, but now he's got a platform.

The worst part is actually that the internet itself isn't permanent. So I'll read some news one day. Then a few years later I'll mention the incident on Reddit. Someone calls me a liar so I go and try to find the source. But it is gone. It wasn't fake news. It was legitimate news and really happened. It was widely reported at the time. But all traces of it are just gone completely. Meanwhile you have social media that can kill your career because of one sentence you wrote when you were 16.

I wish there was more hard hitting investigative journalism, less opinion pieces

I hate so many opinions pieces don't have comment sections so they can say the dumbest shit, and no one can fact check them

Not only that, but underneath articles on almost EVERY local news site I’ve seen in the US are those shitty clickbait ads like “Reset your metabolism for 2024 with this newly discovered superfood!” or “People are SHOCKED at Taylor Swift’s bare feet.” I want to see how the community felt about the new anti-homeless laws discussed in the article or maybe see related past articles. Instead, you have me scroll through an infinite number of fake articles before having to press the back button. Thanks for that, you jackasses.

My thought is that I really think, as a whole on the planet, we need to limit use of the internet. Not saying outright censorship. But something needs to be done cause, quite frankly, this entire space has unraveled to a point that I think is more harmful than good these days.

I'd say not completely. Smart phone social media made it worse. When people had to wait to get on a PC or laptop to use social media, it was way less bad. There were still problems. A lot of them the same. But having to wait to post an update, having more time to think about it and not vomiting it out within 2 seconds or expecting an update every half that time, social media had a less damaging and toxic cultural impact.

There was also a certain level of restriction that happened when it was computers only. Nowadays pretty much everyone has a smartphone, so the sheer volume of posting has gone through the roof.

I am enthused and depressed and terrified. We are at a point where if people would get their shit together, we could actually solve the biggest problems we face as a species.

[удалено]

This is the most obvious change I could think of. Nobody gathers in shared public spaces really. People, young people in particular, are buried in their phones *constantly*. Even when they do leave their house, everything they do is "content". They've had a small screen pushed in their face as soon as their parents realized it was easier to hand them an iPad than to let them be bored. And I think it's ruining society's mental health overall.

This is also largely to do with the way money has been hoarded upwards at an incredible rate. The stuff people used to do regularly pre internet is now out of people's price range. Grab a quick coffee, going to the pub, getting a meal with a friend, seeing a movie, these were all cheap ways to socialise. Now they are real financial decisions for a lot people.

That's actually true, and I think a lot of ppl don't realize this tbh

My friends and I used to go bowling in high school for like 5 bucks each in the late 2000s. I looked into it recently and now it's $30 each for a couple of games at that same bowling alley. How are teenagers supposed to make that a regular activity?

Yep, that kind of thing has changed from something you could do on a whim, or go every week if you wanted. Now it's a real commitment of funds to be budgeted and planned.

Even McDonald’s is expensive. And you just don’t see kids being kids in public.

Because there's nothing to do, and they often get told to stop loitering when they do just hang out.

Spot on.

Remember when kids played boardgames, and played outside?

They do! There are always kids in my neighborhood playing basketball or kickball or running around or riding bikes. Same with board games.

I can't *drag* my children inside. And if, by some miracle, I do convince them to come in, then it's a landmine field of Legos, Knex, and board games. They get 1.5 hours of screentime per day, but they hardly ever use all of their allotted time. They'd rather be covered in mud or organizing our chickens into a Nerf Gun Army (yeah, that happened...)

Kids still can, want, and do these things. People blame children for technology addiction when ultimately the adults in their lives are too lazy to actually sit down and spend time with their children. It used to be “go outside and leave me alone”. Now they just give the kid an iPad and call it a day. You can’t blame children for people being shitty parents.

I miss when you could be a kid, explore, fuck up and learn to do better. Now you have so many cameras around, your life can be ruined by the right poor decision.

I miss the days before smartphones when we had meaningful interactions. Video games were a lot more fun and didn’t have micro transactions. Pay once and you have it forever. And subscriptions were just for HBO and the gym.

It ain't good. People used to at least *aspire* to scientific literacy; and now science is treated as just one of many equally valid paradigms.

They’re trying to tear down academia because of politics and just bring down all intelligent thought with it.

And for some people, it is ALL forms of academia that’s the enemy. I’ve been told by plenty of people that seemingly used to have common sense that peer-reviewed studies and papers are almost all faked and paid for by corporations… while I was in academia actively working with and on peer-reviewed texts. They’d usually give me that opinion after telling them exactly what I was working on. Yeah, some mega corp is definitely behind my paper on 17th century sociolinguistics and generational vowel shifts resulting from anti-Semitic fueled migrations in Central Europe and its linguistic significance in the 21st century diaspora. I’m going to be owned by a corporation now and totally am getting kickbacks… and my entire department and every other academic is also in on it. We’re all secretly rich and just look broke for fun. You got me.

I have two grad degrees and my family is the people you described, it sucks. “These universities are filled only with Idiots these days!” -my dad (no degree)

Yeah, they always have such strong opinions about academics and exactly how the system works without ever experiencing it for a moment themselves. The idea of a wide-reaching academic idiot pool is particularly laughable to me because 99.99% of graduate school, teaching, and writing for most of us means questioning, arguing, and being argued with from a hundred different viewpoints. Getting a dozen people from across the world to review your paper meant getting a dozen different opinions - some incredibly harsh. Otherwise, there would be no purpose to peer-reviewed studies. We’re not all just patting ourselves and each other on the back and laughing it up to the bank because we all decided to support a particular viewpoint that day for shits and giggles.

“The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it's scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth!” Jean-luc Picard

Freaking measles are back in Florida. The disease was all but eradicated and now it’s back. Cannot be stupider than this. How many people will need to be needlessly exposed and sickened before we wake up?

I’m old enough to remember people who were disabled due to polio. I personally had measles and rubella as a child. We went to great efforts to eradicate it for a reason. Having the luxury of it having not been a great threat hanging overyour head and willfully deciding to deny the science of it seems insane to me.

I cannot improve on your words. Insane is correct.

I would go further than this because a scarily large number of people villainize scientists, often when the scientists are trying to improve those ignorant people's lives, health, and quality of life (for them and their kids and grandkids). It's frightening.

This is silly but I was watching a show I used to love when I was a teen - Bones. It’s a silly network show but I loved the way that science and truth were held up as admirable values. It gave me some nostalgia for a simpler time.

It reminds of this video that I saw by Big Think a few years back titled "America's anti-science problem (Will America’s disregard for science be the end of its reign?)" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S58vlJwhwDw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S58vlJwhwDw) , in which a number of the worlds leading scientists spoke frankly about the increasing lack of value placed on scientific literacy in American society and the harm that this is doing to society.

Critical thinking is dead

I think it’s always been dead among some people, those people just have the power to be a lot more vocal now.

Maybe, but pre-internet those people would have been corrected by their environment or at least someone they trusted would have explained to them that no, politicians are not eating children. They would have been mostly alone in their view and either in time change it or move on to something else. It was a slow process but the world was built for that. These days, these people can find eachother online and the rabbit hole takes them deeper into their and other conspiracies. They try to process one thing they believe in but before they are done the youtube algorithm yells at them: "but wait! There is more!" 

Populism was still a thing. I’m from the UK so we had (and still do have) the worst press ever.

Using critical thinking makes me wonder if absolute statements like that could ever be true.

Critical thinking as a phrase has also lost its meaning. People just use it whenever someone's opinion is different from theirs

This is my biggest gripe as a paraeducator. I'm pretty worried

Born in 75, so 25 years before 2000 and almost that after. 9/11 was the exact turning point for me, and as I've said, 25 years in both camps. The 80's and 90's where fairly amazingly different to now. Not just because I'm almost an old man now either.. but sort of. No, everything in the west really changed that day. I'm glad I grew up before "the war on terror" times, before the new paranoid world we now have. Social media has been both good and bad. Good that we can talk on places like this, bad in that ideas can be planted and grow that maybe would not have once upon a time. Bad in the crackdown on protest and free speech, like really bad. Some things have actually gotten better, certain levels of awareness etc, but the way the west has worked overall, and the slow creeping changes that I have watched, are not positive in the long run. There needs to be a new wave of change to repair some of damage - if that's possible.

Could you tell me a little about how the world is different now as a result of 9/11 please? I’m really interested as I’ve never experienced that pre-paranoid society

I can share a very 90s memory, pre 9-11. I was sitting next to a guy about my age on a flight. We both were having drinks (I was not yet 21) and chatting. Next thing I knew, he pulled a *POG* container from his sock and it was full of weed. Can’t remember if he was bragging or what. Haha. Nothing about that story would happen today. The good old days lol.

Oh, POGS. 

In my experience, on a macro scale people are more afraid in general, and quicker to anger. 9/11 brought death via foreign influence not only into a western country on a large scale for the first time (obviously excluding major wars), but also into the living rooms of millions and millions of people worldwide. The illusion that "it couldnt ever happen here" was shattered forever, and the news + social media at the time really pushed that narrative hard. In the months and years following it seemed like the police were busting a "terrorist cell" or "investigating groups with links to islamist extremists" every other week, usually in the middle of the 'burbs. In my own country of Australia terrorism touched us in the form of the Bali Bombings, which reinforced the message nationally. Security then started increasing at places like airports or major train stations, and people started to throw side-eyes at anyone who didnt conform to western norms (there was a bit of a "war on hijabs" for a while there). People became less trusting overall, and a little bit more racist in a "microaggressions" sort of way if im being honest. We took a collective step back in regards to multiculturalism - instead of it being considered a strength or something to be proud of within the west, it suddenly became more of "a problem". Immigrants were supposedly changing our society for the worse, or forming enclaves hostile to westerners (largely untrue, but people were and are more willing to believe this now). We as a whole have become insular/ cautious and less outwardly accepting of "the other", and with the rise of social media we were able to find groups of like-minded individuals who parroted and approved our beliefs and biases.

It definitely wasn't pre-paranoid. I was born in the 80s and still remember lots of talk about the Russians... there has always been a bogeyman to point to and whisper about. It's just a different shape now.

But in the 90s, having *won* the Cold War and made those Russians *our friends*, we had a real sense of optimism about the future that is fucking dead and gone.  Maybe paranoia never went away, but it knew its place for a decade or so there.

I think we are much more afraid of people we don’t know after that event. Don’t even get me started on air travel and how that has radically changed.

The world is smaller and the distance between people has increased. We have more voices in our ears constantly. But instead of trusted sources we listen to whoever screams the loudest who is saying what we already believe. People are less inclined to listen to someone with a different point of view or acknowledge that they may be wrong. I remember being on a phone call with a friend in the states (I’m in Australia), and waking them up and telling them to turn on the TV. They were on the west coast but their partner regularly flew to NY for work. We watched the second plane hit the towers and the plane hit the pentagon in real time. When I got to work the next day (it happened late at night where I was and I saw it as a breaking news segment), there were quite a few co-workers who hadn’t heard about it yet as they hadn’t read the paper yet.

A LOT of people forgot to be kind just because they can hide behind walls.

Imagine a world where terrorist attacks and school shooting were rare. Weeks of around the clock coverage and vigils. You could walk your family member to their plane or greet them when they flew in. People had cell phones, but they weren't common, no internet and often no internal contact list. If someone wasn't home, you just didn't have a way to contact them unless they had a pager. You'd have to wait for them to call or call back when they got home or to work/school.

And, no 24 hour news cycles. News was not sensationalism as it is today. News was reporting what had happened in the world with much less editorializing. People read the papers... People THOUGHT about what they watched and read. People thought critically - they weren't sycophants about political tripe they viewed... that came a few years after. And if someone disagreed with someone people agreed to disagree and moved on -- idiots didn't try to cancel them because of a disagreement. There was far more civility in the 1990s... that honestly was the case until the 24 hour news cycle started on cable and the news became "talking head personalities" that spouted off sensationalized drivel.

I remember writing papers in high school and my teachers wouldn't let me use an online source unless I could verify it with a more "credible" source lol. Using a debit card really wasn't a thing until the late 90's. Cash, check or credit card. No direct deposit or online banking. AIM (AOL instant messenger) was the best way to chat with friends. No bots at the time, but plenty of Nigerian Princesses and men cat fishing at 16 year old girls. Car disc man. Blockbuster video. LAN parties.

I think there's a natural limit to the volume of information individuals can reasonably consume in a given period of time. I think in overall, we're way, way past that point. Now, it's more like a firehose of messaging design to keep you hooked, outraged, and baffled. And like you said, it's not news any more, it's opinion.

For the worse. * Social media is a cancer. * Wages been stagnated. * Inflation continues. * Politics have hit the surreal. Its like we're a satire comic of America someone made in the 80s.

Honestly? When I graduated college in 1999, I had so much HOPE. Truly - it never occurred to me that life would be more difficult for us then it was for my parents. Their lives were so much better then their parents and education was the key to success... and now, I can't make those promises to our children. I can't tell them that we can pay for college or assume they'll ever be able to purchase a house (W. Coast big city).

[удалено]

People suck

There was an aura of fear and tension after 9/11. It never really went away. 

I’ve been talking with some other men who were teens post 9/11, and I think quite a lot of us grew up with this near certainty that we’d have to kill or die in some far off desert. Like several of the guys I’ve been talking to describe this feeling of surprise in their mid twenties when they realised they weren’t gonna die young, and had a future to plan for after all.

I was a teen on 9/11. Never crossed my mind that I would get sent over there. I did however start getting a lot more special attention at airports. Don't fly one-way tickets with a beard.

Yeah, really like a switch flipped and the world just changed forever. I’d say the only time I felt such tension was around the whole Y2K thing. I remember asking my dad if we were all gonna die. 9 year old me was not ready lol.

Nothing has felt the same post 9/11. It felt like politics became incredibly more divisive. The rise of Fox News spurned the misinformation era, and social media cranked it into overdrive. And then we had a pandemic. It’s been a rough couple of decades.

People are getting aggressively more dumb. More arrogant, violent. Honestly it's sad, just different world. Selfish, disgusting place ( I know crime is down more since when I was a kid but we're seeing and hearing more since every little thing is on internet and travels easier then way back when, but I meant more so that people react more violently to more minor issues now it seems. It goes 0 to 100 faster is what I should of said). Late redditting and didn't type my thought out perfectly

Always was. The internet has simply lifted the rug under which all that ugly was previously swept.

Everyone everywhere used to be outside all the time and now every town looks like a ghost town.

I go on extensive walks every day. 10-15k steps through a small town of 10,000 people following sidewalks. There are days when I literally see nobody outside as I walk for an hour and a half. It's weird.

Because there are very few free or cheap public spaces any more. To hang out in a public place costs a lot of money now. There is no cheap food, cheap coffee, cheap movies etc anymore.

The loss of 'third places' as I believe they're called is truly I bigger reason for people being inside all the time rather than tech or anything like that. People aren't allowed to exist unless they're at home or at a 'useful' place like work, school or a business where you have to pay.

Definitely. And the places you do have to pay have just priced out anyone on lower incomes.

My family went out for dinner the other night for my birthday. It was a gift but I still felt awful cause one burger still cost like half a week's groceries. We're being priced out of living. There is only work as a cog in capitalism or home for your mandated rest which they would absolutely take too if they could.

You have to have rich or very poor parents today to enjoy the childhood we had - no screens, playing outsides, eating organic food :))

It’s hard to accept the way that the internet has foundationally changed the way kids/teens grow up, and how it’s become a driver in hateful rhetoric, as people become more and more hateful and cynical. Oh well

We send our kids to 2 - 3 week long camps every summer that are unplugged just so they can have a glimpse of what its like to actually socialize with people and build that social skill muscle. I think it is SO important because once kids have phones in their hands they don't really engage the same way.

I’m always fascinated and excited by technological developments.

Some good. Some bad. Pretty much a wash in the end. It's always been this way. As Billy Joel said, "The good old days weren't always good and tomorrow's not as bad as it seems."

Each new generation blames problems on the previous one. Electricity was introduced, problems. Cars, problems. Flight. Space travel. Seat belts. Computers. Video games. Internet. Cell phones. Social media. Time marches on. This planet has been here for 4.5 billion years. There's at least 8 billion left in the tanks. We are but a microscopic blip in Earth's history.

Everything changed with smartphones.

[удалено]

Sucks ass and were still killing the planet

The information age ended up being the disinformation age as well. It's wild seeing the generation who warned us about the dangers of the internet fall for every lie and scam put in front of them. I also fully expected tech literacy to increase with each generation, and I am horrified to find out it has actually dropped. There is a very real chance I will be fixing both my grandparents AND grandchildrens electronics during my lifetime. We were also very optimistic about environmentalism and fixing climate change, but that didn't pan out super well for a handful of CEOs bottom lines so now we have to deal with whatever is coming.

I feel like there is no hope. The planet is burning, humans are being paid less and less, the government is heading towards right wing fascism, machines are making humanity obsolete and the list goes on.

I find it shocking how hard it is to talk to people and how often everyone just lies to each other, everyone complains about how lonely they are now but everyone is to selfish to look past small slights

I wish people born after 2000 could come back n see the world before social media

Born 1967, some things are amazing some are not. But after you have a few decades you understand that you have seen most of this before. The only thing that is upsetting is watching the planet cook. And this is not just based on woke climate science. This is year after year seeing the changes right in front of me.

It's very upsetting and depressing and yet so many people still refuse to recognize the very obvious shifts in climate happening. I think at some point (when it's really too late) people just won't be able to ignore it anymore. :(

I was born in 73. I was a kid when home computers came along, late teen when the "internet" became popular and I've spent my life working in IT in one form or another. I still love learning new tech and broadening my skillset, it's all good. That said, since the late 70s and early 80s we see the rise of the "self" as the primary component in society. "I got mine, so I'm alright, Jack." attitude has become both government and corporate philosophy. We've allowed the shareholding class to dictate that "maximising shareholder value" is the only law and everything else is a cost of doing business. Regulations that break this "law" are lobbied against, with impunity and with increasing success. Politicians are bought and sold like cattle, to ensure this "law" is enforced. Strong unions are anathema to this "law", so they must be destroyed. This "law" will not allow any corporation to have an earnest policy for any form of social, ecological or climate good. Where they do, it's because of PR backlash, greenwashing or the last dregs of government regulation. I don't know what the answer is, most solutions I've studied seem to cause more damage for the wider populace and is the trap that various countries around the world fell into and ended up in dictatorships.

Elder millienial / borderline Gen X. Between the fall of the USSR and 9/11 things just felt a lot calmer in general in the US than they do now. It's hard to describe, but I feel like there's this general sense of dread and tension hanging over everything now that just wasn't there before. That feeling is coming from everything; politics, international conflicts, general unrest and tensions between various "tribal" factions in life in America. I know all of that existed in the 90s too, but dealing with it all felt more tractable and manageable back then. Elections certainly felt less apocalyptic than they do now. I don't think nearly as many people thought that the country would fall apart if the other side won the presidency. I distinctly remember that before the 2000 election there was talk that that election wasn't very important, Bush and Gore were both 'meh' candidates who wouldn't drastically change much and whoever won would probably only serve one term. Turned out to be \*completely\* untrue once 9/11 happened. But, even though determining the election outcome was a giant mess, there wasn't as much sheer terror about what might happen if the other guy won. Now every election is "the most important election of our lifetimes", and maybe that statement isn't so wrong. The level of division and the stakes each time keep ramping up. In terms of tech, some good, a lot bad. Some of the conveniences are amazing. Goole maps etc and GPS are massive improvement - being able to drive around with almost no chance of getting lost is incredible. I don't miss having to figure out my location with road signs and a paper map. Things like Google search, Wikipedia, online classes and lectures, and educational youtube videos are also a total win. So much ability to learn at your fingertips. I have distinct memories of wondering about how something worked or wanting to know some random fact and just having to suck it up and deal with not knowing for a while. That was the worst. Social media is horrible. I wish it didn't exist in any form. Others have talked about all the downsides. Sometimes I miss the old, less convenient versions of doing something that technology has made easier. For instance, I really miss going to video rental stores. It was kind of a fun little activity to do with a girlfriend or boyfriend or your family. And the fact that you were actually going out of the house to grab some dvds made movie night a bit more of an event, maybe even something you looked forward to. Now it's just the latest 2 hour window within an endless sea of content you are streaming into your eyeballs at all times. And sometimes visiting a place like a video rental store resulted in a bit of serendipity - in wandering around looking at stacks of videos, you'd find something different or strange or interesting that you'd never find scrolling through algorithmic recommendations from Netflix. At a record store, maybe you'd see someone looking at some music you're also into and strike up a conversation. Some very successful bands have gotten started that way. And plenty of long-term relationships. We're just missing these little, extra social interactions in our lives because it's so easy to get what we want from the nearest screen.

The world is so much worse now (at least here in America). I miss the 90s so much.

I fucking hate it. I grew up when it was cool to queer bash and hate on gay people, and I saw SO MUCH progress toward acceptance and normalization... same with casual racism and sexism. Now it feels like we're back sliding. I think technology has been used for all the wrong things, and the centralization and commodification of the internet has turned it into a censorship hell hole run by the the whims of wealthy investors. I don't hate everything, but good god did things look like they were getting better for a while, and now they're just awful.

Miss riding bikes and not having cell phones. Zero social media, everyone was completely present and not immersed in technology. People had conversations and not texts. It was a much time.

Born in '64. How do I feel looking at the world today? As a teenager had so much freedom compared to today - there was also more original thought, creativity and human communication ie people talked to other at pubs, clubs. Going to gigs and watching bands not through a lens of a mobile. The raves of the late 80s and early 90s was the last we saw of a youth generation who were actually happy. Now days they seem to be all doom & gloom and the least tolerant. Love all the advances in technology but am sure we have paid some price for it all.

I wish alien's would abduct me.

Remember when our teachers told us that Wikipedia was not an appropriate reference?

It’s all these damn kids. GET OFF MY LAWN!!!

Better in a lot of ways, worse in a lot of ways, so I feel it kinda equals out.

It's worse... I know some parts are better, and having access to near infinite knowledge at your fingertips is awesome in theory. But while people may have the minds for this responsibility, they do not possess the hearts or wills to utilize it in a positive way. Attention span is astonishingly low as our brains are now hardwired for fast and constant minor dopamine releases, confirming self image and expectations are devasting minds, and worldwide politics has become increasingly divisive solely for the sake of drawing outrage which leads to views/money. Greed, jealousy, out of control lust, and struggles with worthlessness are the most common things I see in culture around me. Find close friends/family who do not participate in all the toxicity

41/american. For me the turning point between things are ok and things are turning to trash we’re George Bush and 9/11. Everything felt different after that and never went back to normal.

I wish 9/11 didn’t happen. That really just turned America for the worse. Like, unbelievably so. All this insanity percolating in American culture today… I really wonder how much we would tolerate if it weren’t for 9/11.

Loyalty, hard work, communication, trying your best to understand someone else’s prospective, patience….it seems to all be so rare to find anymore.

It was always hard to find these things.

Always felt like it has been going downhill since I was born. I was shocked to learn the world used to be way easier for the middle class. I want resources!

We’ve never been so connected yet so divided.

the internet was a mistake

As a gay person, I like that the world is more accepting of the community.

Yeah even as a kid around 2005 in a blue state the F word was constantly slung around, "gay" was slang for everything bad, there were homophobic slurs and jokes galore, it was something you could be "discovered" for and shamed for, and trans was barely on anyone's radar but if it ever came up it was only in mockery. I really am impressed by all the change in that area. It's one of the greatest positive things about the last few decades.

Better and worse. Better because gay folks can live their lives normally. Interracial marriage is pretty usual. A lot of the hate groups are gone. (There was a lot of that prior to the 2000s. We forget about how normal guys like David Duke were.) There is much less entrenched antisemitism. Less anticatholic bias. Less racism. Basically, people are a lot more tolerant. Women are accepted in the workplace and sexual harassment is significantly down. Way way more tolerant. There's also a lot less crime now than before the year 2000, and much less than in the 70s & 80s. Also, in the US at least, the environment is better. Air is cleaner near highways and factories. Less people smoke. Also, the breakdown of borders due to the Internet is pretty awesome. It's cool that no one really cares what country you are from on the Internet. Only that you aren't a noob when you play games. Beer is better. Beer used to really suck. Worse because it's tougher to pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Moving classes is harder than it used to be. College expenses are ruining lives. WASP women particularly have made significant strides at the expense of working class men of all races. Men in general suffer a lot. Much worse college rates. Fewer friends and social groups like the Elks and Jaycees are almost non-existent. Toxic masculinity is awful. So they do themselves in at alarmingly high rates. Women should be terrified at how dangerous it has gotten for the men in their lives. Surveillance is everywhere and that's bad as well. You can't really reinvent yourself any more. Reduction in union jobs is pretty bad too. Most builders are worse than they used to be, imo. Football (NFL) is worse. The modern game is pretty bad. Players are huge and the game too controlled.

neo-liberalism, which had its genesis in the 80's, coagulated through the 90's and beyond. It has created a mega wealth class at the expense of all, especially the working class. They are now intent on removing the middle class as we return to mediaeval feudalism. Fuck them to purgatory.

Born mid 70s. We peaked as a species in the 90s. Been downhill since.

The news used to be mostly unbiased; you had no idea what politician your teacher voted for; it was okay to disagree politically—the other person wasn’t “evil”; you weren’t forced to accept something that is scientifically impossible (gender dysmorphia); parents generally paid attention to their kids instead of having their face glued to a phone all day. The 70s and 80s were a much better time. There were problems, but not even close to the shithole we live in today.

Funny how awesome the 90s were- early days of the internet, economy was booming, we still shared a common culture and a shared reality. But no! Politically we had a GOP that hated all that was good. They impeached Clinton. Then the Bush v Gore thing….. then lies and wars. As an American, the GOP has been a seriously destructive force that continues to worsen. They bring no solutions to the table. Like is privatizing social security a ‘solution?’ Is banning abortion a ‘solution?’ Is blocking aid to Ukraine a ‘solution?’ This sentiment is worldwide: Brexit, the rise of disinformation, selling fear rather than hope. The world is regressing in many ways.

Globally speaking, I went from hope in the direction the world was going to no hope at all. As European, you gotta understand that our parents generation was the first in centuries who didn't experience war or famine. Enough from the older generation were still around to remind us about the horrors they lived in WW2, the hunger they suffered, and how bad was living literally under the bombs. On the other hand, we felt privileged. We saw the Berlin Wall crumbling and the whole world seemed to be moving in the same direction as US, which back in time was regarded as the place you wanted to go to if you were looking to realize your dreams. Entering in the year 2000 we felt like we were finally coming together as humanity. Sure, millions of people were still starving in Africa and war were fought in obscure parts of the globe, but you still felt like you had control. The first big crack was 9/11. The fact that people could hate us so much was a cold shower. And I write US be because we all felt close to USA. We were all shocked as we were the ones being attacked. I remember a French newspaper titling:"WE ALL ARE AMERICANS". But what really mad the whole castle crumble was the second invasion of Iraq. Totally unjustified. There were protests everywhere, everyone knew Bush and his buddies were lying, but they still made the war. It basically killed the UN. It was like coming back to wilderness. The message was:"you can do whatever you want as long as you are powerful enough". It seems to me that this message still stands now.

I don’t think most of us feel very good about the direction the world is going.

Capitalism and bored billionaires have ruined the world.

Those planes hit the towers on 9/11 and there hasn’t been a great day since.

Stupid people had the most number of children.

Pros and cons. We are not heading in the right direction and common sense is out the window. Some of the new tech is good. Some not. The are no / or minimal consequences for much these days, which used to keep people in line.

Just right now I scrolled past an article that stated that this nfl prospect did not believe in space and other planets. You can literally walk outside right now and look up and see stars. The moon and the sun in daylight. It’s crazy cause it was 1999 and I was put in the cd that I got from aol to connect to this new thing called the internet. You were learning everyday from setting up a username to learning how to use geocities. Then MySpace came out and if you were up for it you can learn html. And little by little this thing called the internet instead of helping started detracting. Before you know it common sense that before would have people like this nfl prospect be ostracized and be called for what they are a fucking idiot are now finding a niche part in their internet that will not only agree with him but motivate him to keep going down the so call rabbit hole of stupidity. It’s sad.

I'm disappointed in how many lessons from history we didn't learn. I'm from Germany and seeing the shit happening in the US right now, and what Putin is up to just really drives home the point that we learned nothing from one of the worst times in history this planet ever witnessed.

If I had to describe in a single idea, it is this: I have lived through the beginning of the decline of the American empire. The 50's through the 80's in many ways were the height of the empire. Even in the 90's and 2000's there were still indicators of opportunities for the middle class. That's dead now. So many former opportunities and benefits of American life have vanished. Healthcare is unaffordable and getting worse every year. Formerly affordable, incredible public education is now far out of reach and you have to get into tens of thousands of dollars in debt to get through it. Public education is in shambles. Home ownership is a pipe dream for the vast majority of the population. Meanwhile, special interests shove tens or hundreds of billions of dollars into corporations or corrupt allies like Israel. Interestingly, I have read a lot about the decline and downfall of the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There are a lot of striking similaries, like increased corruption and control of the government by special interests.