NRFT sorry if I'm repeating things
Older women looked different too, they often had set hairdos ("set" means it was fixed by the hairdresser with a solution into tight curls that didn't move) that were all very similar and they wore similar clothes, I can't remember exactly but long skirts etc. This would have been the look for women that we would consider relatively young/not old these days! I don't know why that was the case
I asked an older person about this in recent years. The older people with the "shampoo and set" were the white-haired OAPs, in my town at least. I remember my Mum putting my Nan's hair in curlers each week when she visited. This was the only time my Nan washed her hair. Those who went to the hairdresser for the shampoo-and-set often also had the "blue rinse", basically some type of hairdye that gave them baby blue or lavender hair but it was sort of translucent not like the coloured hairdyes of today and they wore transparent plastic bonnets when it rained. Coloured hairdyes for young people weren't so easy to come by. You couldn't just get them in Boots. Maybe red but that was about it. I saw pics of punks in the 80's with coloured hair but didn't know anyone like that. If I wanted colourful hair I'd have had to go to a hairdresser and it would have cost a fortune.
The "older" people (40+) who dressed in long pleated skirts, day dresses, often topped with a beige anorak. Or smart chino trousers and shirt (full on suit for the OAP men, often finished incongruously with trainers for those who looked doddery). According to the person I asked recently it was because they dressed in the styles that were prevalent when they were young. Fashion was for the young and older people didn't really follow it back then, just stuck with what they knew, so they never looked upto date in the way young people might (they might have had their own version of age-appropriate fashion IDK). Even unfashionable or boringly clothed young people didn't dress like these 40+ people.
The internet was a weird one. I left school at 16 in 1995. I'd had one group session lasting half hour on a desktop PC, during which I didn't get to touch it. The program was Desktop Publishing, a screen where you could lay text out like a magazine article and add in pictures (generic ones that were already on the computer). The internet wasn't something I'd even heard of. I didn't use the internet in any of my basic office jobs, although some had computers with in-house systems, so didn't experience it until I moved in with a boyfriend who worked in technology in 2006 and who had a desktop PC.
In 1995 school work was hand written, research for projects was done in the library or by visiting places or writing to them requesting information. A few posh children had Word Processors which were a huge electronic typewriter and used in a similar way to a manual typewriter but with something that looked closer to a computer keyboard. I went to a State-run Grammar School in London and seemed like 75% of the pupils were middle class, so I don't suppose my school was particularly backwards. The computers for IT lessons were BBC Computers (nope, I've no idea either!) and they taught us to do things like write in coloured font and build a database then search it for information. I had younger siblings and so much had changed by 1998.
I bought my first mobile phone in 1998. A few of my friends had them. It was PAYG (I think they all were? Unless you had one through your job maybe, IDK). Calls were too expensive so we'd text, but not for no reason because that was expensive too and £10 didn't go far. Due to this you tried to keep costs down by only texting to arrange meet-ups or inform of unavoidable delays eg the boss making you work late, people didn't flake out for spurious reasons, if you had plans you kept them. And you'd try to fit everything you needed to say into one text... Mng evry1 wrt lyk dis 2 kp chrct ct dn n msg had 2b dcphed by frn at otr end 😂.
It wasn't hard because with no smartphones there was no predictive or auto text or keyboard, the phones had a keypad like what shows when you go to make a call but in physical buttons not a screen, each digit was also representing several letters and you pressed it repeatedly to get the letter you wanted. We got really fast at typing like it and good at deciphering each others incomprehensible looking texts.
In 1998 I was facing redundancy as my workplace closed my local branch. So I didn't buy the large studio-flat in a London borough in North West Kent for £45k, that I could have got a mortgage on with my £15k wages and £5k deposit. My friend did though and 2yrs later sold for £90k as property prices went crazy.
I remember the minimum wage coming in and my wages when it occurred rising from £4/hr to £4.50/hr as a result. My friend's sister worked in a factory taking labels off coat hangers and earned £2/hr. Poor people were poor and didn't live alone.
There was a feeling of hope around those years approaching the millennium. A few years later I stood with thousands of others watching the fireworks light up the number 2000 in the sky and it felt truly magical.