To miss life before the Internet and Ai

[SURREYmum2025]

Ive been watching Last of Us. And it really reminds me of the 1990's. Back to basics and human connection with no screens & instant gratification.

I miss sending and receiving letters.Posting cards. Remembering everyone's home numbers. Calling on home lines.

Meeting friends and family and saving all the news to talk with them. Instead of everyone knowing what happened due to FB &Insta posts.

Waiting a week for a new episode of a programme. Reading books and newspapers.

Is this just me?

The irony of this-I am posting here.

If I had a button to go back to pre-smart phone times, yes I would press it.

Me too. I don't think I realised how great life was before. It feels like 2012/13 was the turning point for technology excelerating at an unstoppable rate.

Not just you. I miss all this too 🥺
I still love nice stationery and write letters and cards. Though remembering how I used to sit down at my desk with a fountain pen to ‘keep up with my correspondence’ back in the day makes me feel like a Victorian governess. I’m 49 🤷🏼‍♀️
I think all we can do is try to be the change we want to see - to be the keepers of the flame for beautiful analogue things. 🔥 🙌

You can still do most of that if you choose too.

I don't think I would describe how I feel as " missing " life before the Internet as much as feeling an intense sadness about how life is so much more unpleasant now when the Internet had so much potential for making life better. Instead of being a force for good and enlightment and making life easier it has been exactly the opposite.

Love your post. My mum moved house and I found loads of letters I used to receive from friends. I found one letter filled with glitter and sequins in the envelope. When i was at university in the early 90's me and a friend would put 'surprisess' in the envelopes.

I also found loads of letters I wrote my grandmother who lived abroad about extended family gossip that we had all forgotten

I refused to buy a theatre ticket recently. I was standing right there, in the theatre entrance, and wanted to buy a ticket for a show starting in half an hour. They told me I had to go online to do it! So I walked away.

I hardly talk to anyone on the phone now, just my sister and sometimes my aunt. I never speak to friends on the phone, it's all messenger or whatsapp.

I miss going abroad before the internet. Family holidays as a teen were genuinely a step into the unknown, for me anyway.

I feel the same OP - although I do enjoy bits of the internet (inc MN!) I really miss the slower pace of life and the face to face communication.

I think every generation feels like that. I remember my grandmother telling me she missed the time when she didn’t have a TV because people would sit and talk in the evenings rather than being sat in front of the TV.

I miss looking forward to receiving loads of Christmas cards through the post, going in to Woolworths to choose mine from the boxes and boxes of cards they had. Also receiving a postcard when someone went on holiday.

No one seems to want to make small talk now. I hate how everyone is on their phones in waiting rooms or on public transport. I hate seeing toddlers in pushchairs watching screens. Just engage and talk to your child.

I often say ‘take me back to the eighties!’ Life seemed so much simpler. Crazy you can’t buy a theatre ticket at the box office, I was thinking of trying to that doing that next week…..

I miss it. I’ve quit most of my social media. It’s exhausting.

Remember when people would queue over night to get the first books,concert tickets, albums....

My only hope these days is that AI will make the internet completely unusable and we'll be forced to switch everything off and go back to how we were before.

I absolutely hate the idea of Ai anf I really wish it would all crash down around us.

I dont mind some internet such as chat forums,word, excel, some messaging apps, banking is good. Emails.

But all the Ai is getting too much.

My teenage relatives now buy CDs (google for an article about how this is the norm for a lot of that age group) and one said he got people at college to actually talk to each other, so there's some hope. While their old auntie is spending time on this...
Rewatched Jonathan Creek, and it's amazing how much has changed.And try watching The Ring-younger people wouldn't believe you'd pick up a phone, had to wait for photos to be developed etc.