Best things about modern day

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I was thinking earlier how handy it is that I no longer have to carry a whole load of coins for parking, bus fares and the phone box. I use an app/debit card/mobile phone.

I was also recalling how in the olden days, you had to phone a number to get times for the cinema or look it up in your local newspaper.

What other hassles do we no longer have?

Directions! Google Maps usually beats an A-Z.

The internet and mobile phones in general have changed everything.

But for me l think sat nav is just amazing!!! Especially for someone like me who has no sense of direction!

Mind you, I suppose the reverse of this is true - we have some new hassles that we didn't used to have eg having to charge up all our devices! (First world problems)

Also: meter readings. We don’t have a smart meter but I do appreciate at least being able to send a reading and not have to rely on being in when someone turns up.

Just being able to look a fact up and not being told something wrong that you then repeat to others for the next 20 years!

Also vastly more importantly even ten, twenty, thirty years ago there were narrower expectations of what women could or should do in their lives.

Oh sat navs are such sweet freedom to drive almost anywhere. I know they are not infallible but they really are amazing.

Having to un screw the foot on a sewing machine. I just love love love my new machine with its drop off, click on feet, oh and it’s needle threader!

Not dying to a random large predator while going about my day.

smoke free public places

Access to diagnostic tools. My daughter was 4 when diagnosed with autism. I was 34. Had I been born 20 years later I wouldn't have struggled and not understood why for all those years.

My dad is also clearly autistic. He will never get his diagnosis.

I also like not having to take photos to get developed.

To know what the best things are about ‘nowadays’, just imagine what lockdown would’ve been like in previous years.

No ebooks and you can’t go to the library.

No Netflix etc and can’t go to blockbuster.

No online shopping.

No social media, news websites, forums.

No online games.

You’d spend 3 months on lock down with no tv/3 channels/4 channels depending how long you go back, whatever books and games you had on the house, limited communication, you either have to go out for food and medicine, go without or hope you had nice neighbours/didn’t live rurally.

So basically ‘the internet’ mostly covers my answer I think!

Mumsnet. I just wish it was around when my dc were small to help me through times I felt very alone.

And smoke alarms and air bags.

I like that I don't have to wear a watch anymore.

Being alive. I would have died in childbirth if it wasn’t for modern medicine so that’s quite a big advantage for me 😂

Modern medicine and in particular for me glasses! I would essentially be blind a few hundred years ago.

Anaesthesia.. I don’t want to imagine a world without it! Same goes for tampons/modern pads.
Lastly, the dishwasher, ours broke for a few months and ugh washing up just seemed to take forever!

My mum is always amazed at the helpful “baby tech” you can get nowadays, such as contraction counter app, the white noise app, video monitor etc “in my day we just counted our contractions using a watch” 😂

Contraception

I feel so sorry for the women that still don't have access across the world to control how many children they have.

If you have access to it it's life changing.

Also modern medicine, either myself or DS would most likely be dead if it wasn't for the NHS and the amazing surgeons.

Did you used to live in jurassic Park or something?

Dentists.

And the internet.

I gotta say, nothing makes you finish off your morning coffee and pastry on the way to work faster than having a raptor spy you on the commute.

My DC's student house is a world apart from some of the squalid hovels that I lived in as a student 30 years ago. He has a washing machine, for one thing - no slogging to the launderette every month week for him. And he has central heating rather than a suspiciously sooty gas fire attached to his bedroom wall!

Coffee shops. In my youth, a latte was something you could only get at the end of a meal in an Italian restaurant.

Just the fact that because of the internet you can easily find out about all kinds of events taking place and places to visit that you never would have even known about before.