How was life different 15 years ago?

[jamontoastaddict]

2007. I don't mean personally but generally.

Got me thinking in another thread about something that happened (relatives accident) 15 years ago and it seem so recent yet seems so long ago too. 15 years before that was 1992 so I imagine 2007 seems a different lifetime 1992.

Anyway what has changed. I remember topping up my non-smart phone (Samsung clam) by text and that seemed so much better than a top up card.

It was the year the smoking ban came in wasn't it? I finished uni that year and I remember people smoking in all the pubs and clubs, but by the time I started working after the summer break it was no longer allowed.

2007 was a good year as we were yet to be affronted with Ed Sheeran, Adele, Little Mix or One Direction.

I remember using a payphone in 2007. I had a mobile, but not with me. Now they've pretty much disappeared.

It was indeed the year the smoking ban came into force.

Tony Blair was still PM , for half of the year anyway.

Schoolchildren still sat exams and were awarded As, Bs, Cs etc.

House prices had rocketed up.

The first iPhone was released. Before that, a smartphone was a blackberry.

Wispas came back, thing of beauty that they are.

Most people hadn’t been completely indoctrinated with all the trans shite at that point I think? Women weren’t being sacked for suggesting that biological sex is a real thing. Lesbians were still welcome at Pride.

Dating was only just starting to go online. You would still go out on the pull in person if you were trying to meet someone.

In 2006 my uni flat didn't have wireless Internet but I know by 2008 we did. Not sure when exactly we changed over but around then. Certainly in 2006 we would only be on the Internet if we were in our rooms by ourselves so didn't use it anything like the amount we did now. Facebook was also fairly new. I think in 2007 it was still only for people with an ac.uk email address. I remember thinking it was really odd when it was opened up to non-university students!

Woolworths was still open

The Killers and Kaiser Chiefs were all over Radio 1 and now you hear them on Radio 2!

Joke's on them, I still have the CDs and my car (an 07 reg) has a CD player.

We thought the 2006 tuition fee hike (to 3k) was extortionate.

I did Interrail as a solo woman. And I worked in a call centre where you sat in an office with a headset and took calls in a room with a hundred other people.

The bands have aged. Tuition fees are even higher. Interrail is probably unaffordable for most students. And call centres have largely been replaced by chatbots on Twitter with only a handful of staff on the actual end of the phone.

Oh and I didn't know it at the time but I probably could have got a mortgage because self-certifying mortgages still existed.

More smoking in public places; social media was a baby; mobiles were still fairly basic; air travel was fairly cheap; Trans rights wasn’t a huge topic; people still very nervous about terrorism; lots of deals for eating out; BHS and Woolworths were on the High Street.

Tony Blair! That's so weird.

I signed up to Facebook in 2007. Had 5 tv channels.

Forgot about wifi being quite new.

Had a tom Tom sat nav.

Woolworths was never a big part of my life but remember all the stores had a distinctive tiled entrance and you can still identify the old woollies in high streets.

Everyone knew what a woman was.

My dc were young. I remember using digital cameras for the first time in the early part of the 2000s.

The internet wasn’t used as the be-all and end-all as it is today. I think it was still used as a reference tool, and information source.

Didn’t we have mini discs to record music then?

I was 16. Spent my evenings on MSN messenger and probably talked to my friends more than I do now.

I had a mobile phone but it was just a phone, actually may have been a flip phone and an iPod.

Big into emo music. Went to loads of gigs and tickets were dirt cheap compared to now!

Still mainly used a desktop computer.

I could talk about this until the cows come home. I was 21 in 2007 and it felt like the world was my oyster

My 2007-2008 Uni shared house didn't have internet at all because BT couldn't/wouldn't install it in my shared house. More surprising than that, it wasn't a big deal - if we needed the internet, we just went to the computer lab at the campus or used the library. Although the library also didn't have wireless.

By the time I started my masters in late 2008 though, wi-fi was becoming much more ubiquitous, as was having data on your phone.

What I remember most though, is just how much money there was sloshing around pre-financial crash, and how far your cash seemed to go. Also pre-2008 it was much, much easier to get a job. I have an arts degree from a red-brick university and KPMG recruiters used to hang around outside our lecture theaters, offering us branded cookies and trying to recruit us. I turned down working at Lehman Brothers (with zero banking/finance experience) to go and get a masters. It's my sliding doors moment 😂.

By the time I finished my masters in 2009, the job market was a mess and it was really, really hard to get hired and I feel like it's stayed that way.

Also pre-2008 it was much, much easier to get a job. I have an arts degree from a red-brick university and KPMG recruiters used to hang around outside our lecture theaters, offering us branded cookies and trying to recruit us. I turned down working at Lehman Brothers (with zero banking/finance experience) to go and get a masters. It's my sliding doors moment 😂.

That's incredible. I graduated in 2009 and I've said on another thread that I was told this was how the job market would work and it absolutely didn't by then. How quickly it changed in the space of a year or two!

In 2007 I still had a very small TV with a fat back to it.

And I took ecstasy every weekend. Went to so many gigs and festivals.

Didn't really use the Internet except at work when I used Bebo.

Was obsessed with The Hills.

@WomenShouldWinWomensSports It changed SO quickly. I graduated from my undergraduate in 2008 and my post-grad in 2009 and it was night and day.

A lot of companies scrapped their grad schemes during the crash - several of my friends found themselves laid off within a few months of starting work, which meant there was a huge flood of new graduates in a very tight market. It was total clusterfuck.

I wound up working at the university I got my masters from from 2012-2014 and by that time the culture had totally changed - suddenly the students were planning their careers and internships right from when they were 18. They def went out and partied a lot less and were really worried about their future and the image of themselves they put out into the world. There was a lot less room for trying stuff out and experimentation and figuring out who you were.

Thought I'd made it with my iPod nano

I had an iPod and Blackberry, traipsed around London in high heels consulting my Smythson A-Z.

Bought my first flat and was paying £420 interest only, because I was on a grad scheme with guaranteed pay rises.

Worked in the city, was routinely sexually harassed by older colleagues, but I thought it was banter. So many senior colleagues shagging girls in the office. Got lots of free meals at Michelin star restaurants and rugby matches all in the name of corporate entertaining because they needed some females to balance out the dicks.

To be honest I had a great time and look back on it all quite fondly.

I didn't have a landline. No home phone. No internet unless I went to the library and used the one hour you were allowed there! I'd check my email there once a week or so.

I had a flip phone. I could only call friends on the same network as me as otherwise it was 45p per minute! I once had a £100 mobile bill! I think I had 200 texts com so used them wisely.

Job applications were done by buying a weekly paper and phoning a number to get a paper application sent out. Then filling that in by hand and paying for postage to return it. Rejection letters came by post.

I still used my video player but got a DVD player in 2005 so was gradually replacing my videos with dvds. I only had 5 channels on my tv. I'd fall asleep with the end of dvd menu loop music on!

I had a street map with me if I was going somewhere new as there was no sat nav. I used the road atlas to plan long car journeys. I had to remember what junctions to turn off.

I'd only twice ever ordered anything online then.

My car didn't have rear doors or as many air bags as cars now.

I got paper bank statements every month and every bill was in paper. I think I still used cheques then?

I didn't have a digital camera so there are few photos from then. I think I used occasional disposable cameras?

I was pretty disengaged from politics/ the news. I don't even think I voted in 2005. There were no big issues I cared about.

I read chick lit books like Jane Green, Marian Keyes and historical fiction like Philippa Gregory. I watched 24, ER, etc.

I went to the take that reunion tour.

I had my first baby in 2007 so was all in a bit of a baby blur. But I do remember Facebook coming out & thinking it was very cool - who knew how much it would grow! CDs were still a fairly common place thing, though I did have an iPod, it was a pain to sync it with the laptop to download songs. I can’t really remember not having the internet for virtually everything like now - I’d love to go back in time for a day and see what it was like.
I do remember terrorism being big news still as was only 2 years since 7/7 and only 6 since 9/11 - both seem so long ago now. but despite that times seemed far more optimistic - even after the 2008 crash it didn’t seem as bleak as now.

Had an original Motorola Razr (hot pink obvs) and no computer. I remember the first iPhone being released and thinking it sounded like a shite idea.

Rent was 595pcm for the large 3 bed flat I shared with friends and utilities were peanuts.

Had a tiny fat backed TV.

Actually worked in Woolworths and hadn’t lost my job yet 😂 and my NMW was like £4.60 an hour or something.

And we all had that one friend who brought a digital camera on a night out.

Finding a flat or house to rent was SO easy. Letting agents had loads of new properties every week, there wasn't anywhere near as much demand. If you saw one you liked, you just proved you had a job or got a guarantor signature and got it.

Now rental viewings are like a wall street trading floor with people trying to outbid each other!

Doesnt seem very long ago to me, a sure sign I am getting old🤣🤣

Don’t think we had broadband yet, no online shopping to speak of.

My dses were 5 and 3 so eldest would have not long started school.

I would have had a mobile but no camera phone. Was quite late to the digital camera game so not that many photos.