To think the 90s were happier?

[hoven]

I grew up in the 90s and when I think about growing up I felt a lot let anxious and things felt just more relaxed.

Fast forward to now I'm a parent and feel so stressed and think back to the things I used to do as a child such as going to events (with mum) and shopping centres etc fill me with dread and worry.

Is the because I'm a parent now or were things easier and less scary in the 90s?

I live in London and grew up in London

Adults are more conscious of dangers than children 90s children were not that free or much safer obviously internet access is the big change not going into the wider world

I left high school in 96 and did my A levels at a tech college in 98.

For me life is harder now because if my disabilities and illnesses ( kids/house/grown uplife) but I had them then, they were not as severe. There was less support physically and emotionally. There's less bullying these days, more recognition and support for anxiety and mental health issues. They also aren't as taboo and are discussed much more freely.

I think social media has had a huge impact on life as well as mobile phones. Going to uni in 98 I had my first phone and it was a brick. Most people I shared with didn’t have one! It seems like there’s pressure to be on everything, everywhere, all at once- and be prefect at everything all of the time, especially for the teens, young twenty something age group. Obviously a generalisation.

In a way it’s sad, life was easier going and happier, but it’s safer now. You have the emergency services in your handbag/ pocket. Where as years ago, you had to run home or find a working phone box, knock on a random door for help.

Economically- for me I had a part time job and it paid well. Once I graduated I had a good wage. Now I’m stuck on disability benefit and struggling. It’s going to be a really shit boring summer holiday for the kids. But, I guess they will play out with the local kids/their friends, like we did years ago on our bikes.

Public services are under a huge strain, schools, teachers, NHS, nurses, doctors, bus services etc all being cut or had little to no investment for years. Having said that, housing conditions are better, but there’s less to go around. The care system is better- but there’s less carers to go around.
I think the country needs a huge shake , top down. Less managers on huge salaries kicking the arse out of company expense and more ground staff/ more housing. Again a generalisation and it will be years before this can be achieved.

I was an adult living and working in London. Everything was better.

They were better in lots of ways, I think. Economically, pay was better and rents were cheaper, so the cost of living was no such a strain. And there was no social media.

Was a hard time for me.
Husband lost his job because of the mad cow disease outbreak.
Our rent was expensive. His pay was shit. Bills were high. We struggled a lot
Lost my grandparents too.

90s was a great era. London has changed a lot in the space of 30 years.

I wouldn't have thought twice about walking home alone in the 90s at 3am. I definitely wouldn't do that these days, things do feel more fraught and there is definitely more crime and feels less safe.

I think there are key things thst have changed since 90s. I had my kids in mid and then late 90s

• the internet and social media means we are constantly flooded with news and information at all hours of the day. Since bad or catastrophic news sells better than good news stories , that means we’re exposed to more frequent doom and gloom. And we’re also seeing way more doom and gloom in real time form around the world, and smaller stories that would just never had made the headlines in limited news programmes on to or once a day print papers. Add to that we get to see and hear way more graphic details on those stories due to the ever presence of phone cameras and recordings. Add to that, once you start clicking on stories in social media the heuristics will just generate more of same stuff . We are swamped by bad news in ever graphic details. Enough for anyone to feel doom and gloom
• again the internet has definitely caused the pornification of society . This isn’t a coincide. The porn industry, along with military are the 2 major players in early adoption of technology . The porn industry has arguable more funds to play with than the military. The rise in AI just now is latest examples- sex dolls and missiles . The porn industry has been driven to create ever more extreme content on line, to perpetuate ever more “acceptable” sexualisation in society to keep the cash cow flowing. I’m not doing a Mary Whitehouse here, we are seeing an epidemic of bad sexual relationship expectations, focus on body image acceptance of very sexualised content on mainstream media etc. and most critically, younger and younger children drawn into it. The porn industry, like the tobacco industry, has a vestige interest of making children addicts to its services at ever increasing young ages .
• we have also become increasingly burdened with aspirations that are unachievable - again media and internet has contributed to this. But it also comes with new build house marketing, car marketing, etc. we have more stuff in our homes, and expect more stuff , than we did in 90s. Part of that is because of technology, part of it is stuff got really cheap whilst inflation and interest rates were at historic lows in 2008 -2019. We’ve never had borrowing so cheap even when you go back 109 years or more. That’s fine, but comparison is the thief of joy. And made all the worse now by the cataclysm of cost of living rises. Going fork being able to have a lot of stuff, to barely being able to heat your home or feed your family is a massive shock to anyone and certainly a cause of a lot of unhappiness

but I think the biggest thing that impacts people is that we are in first/ just second generation of kids that’ll be worse off than their parents in so many ways. And in this country stakes are high in that: housing costs, pensions, free health care before you even get to global fears around climate change

I was a young mother in the 90s. No social media, still had discipline in schools, parents were still parents, rather than trying to be their kids mates.
People actually still worked full time, rarely heard of mental health problems. ( it was always "a bad back" then)
Very little in the way of hard drugs .
People did smoke weed but tended to do it at home. No walking through a town centre through the waft of weed smoke.
No gangs of feral kids terrorising neighbourhoods. Very rare to hear of teens stabbing each other, which seems to be a daily occurrence now.
No men trying to access women's toilets/changing rooms etc. People were more respectful of others. Good manners still existed. Still had strict licensing laws and no all day drinking until the laws were relaxed, which was a massive mistake IMHO.
On the flip side there was more sexism/racism/homophobia , some very high interest rates which caused many people to lose their homes, no free child care, working tax credits etc.
So really, the good, the bad and the ugly .
The very worst thing nowadays though, imo, is social media and allowing young children to have smartphones

I’m so sorry. That’s shit.
I can’t help but feel so many adults are carrying the awful weight of their unprocessed grief in these circumstances because as children they were expected to carry on as though nothing happened. It was cruel.

I have a terminally ill young nephew and as soon as I told my kids school about it they had all sorts of support in place within days.

9/11 and the reaction to it (the Iraq disaster).

The 2008 global crash and the reaction to it

Austerity through the 2010's

Covid to set the tone for the 2020's

It has been shit. No decade is perfect. 90s you had the last decaying Tory government after long-term Tory rule. There was at least optimism that Labour would get back in and change things. Now we all just assume everything is fucked. There wasn't the same nihilism and pessimism.

Culturally the 90s were fun as well. The music was better, films were better, the club scene was better.

rarely heard of mental health problems.

Yeah, but they were still there, unknown, untreated and causing shit everywhere to everyone. Just because you don't see the juggernaut that spatchcocks you on the road doesn't mean it wasn't there.

I was an adult in the 90s and although not having a great time personally, they were better times economically. Once the early 90s recession was over it was an economic boom time and when Labour got in in 1997 they put record amounts of money into health and education. It really did feel for a bit as if things were getting better. Before 9/11 and the Iraq War. I think social media has also played a large part in people feeling anxious and insecure, as others have said.

Analogue childhood. Digital adulthood.

It was happier times for me.
All of my family were alive, Things were so much simpler too

Incidentally, I remember my parents in the 90s complaining about how shit they were and how much better everything had been 30 years earlier when they were young. Dad in particular hated the fashions of the time and couldn't understand why everyone wasn't still dressed like it was the 60s and 70s.

It was a lot happier times, and no, I wasn't a kid! The 90s was when I qualified, got married, bought our first house, etc. It was a time of general contentment, hope, opportunities, etc. You could phone an organisation and speak to a real human in the UK not a robot and not someone in India pretending to be called "Fred". Things were made in the UK. Police actually attended crimes. Colleges did lots of different courses for all ages so people could better themselves. You'd get pretty quick/pretty good healthcare services in GP surgeries and hospitals. You could go to shops to buy things. You could drive on roads without worrying too much about potholes, severe congestion, etc., but at the same time there were decent bus services. Even small villages had libraries. You could relatively easily buy or rent somewhere to live.

The last 25 years or so have been awful. Too many people, not enough infrastructure built to cope with them. Too many young people going to Unis at the expense of adult education being virtually scrapped. Police more bothered about "thoughts" rather than physical crimes. Rich getting richer at the expense of the squeezed middle.

I'd go back to the nineties in a heartbeat.

Agreed. Think it was because of less people and cars. Now it's over crowded everywhere. I remember walking into town and hardly seeing anyone, now it's packed. Used to get same day doctor appointments, now we have to wait or go to a & e. Everything feels more stressful, especially when work can directly contact you via your mobile phone & social media.

We were lucky to have lived in the 90's it was an absolutely brilliant decade on every level

Oh hell yeah!

I went through the 2nd half of secondary, uni, and was working a couple of years by the end of the 90s. There was so much more freedom then for young people and so much less expectation.

My family weren't the only but among the relatively privileged
To go on holiday - self catering I this country.

We didn't have a lot to spend, but we could make it stretch.

We went out to the pub in the opposite corner to the parents, but enjoyed a few beers listening to music in the same place at weekends.

We could wander the fields all day.

If we were in the pub and enjoying it and decided we'd go on to the nightclub, we'd organise a minibus to town (10 miles) and more often than not the company would put a full sized bus on coming home (as we'd start with 8-10 going, there'd be 20 by the time the 15 seater turned up, and a few more would make their own way there so we'd usually have 30-40 on a 53 seater). And it was easy to sort that.

There wasn't as much judgement and piling on - social media has really changed that.

We walked or cycled a lot of places. But we organised ourselves to get places.

I have MN, and LinkedIn for work. I have a FbB a/c but have rarely used it. Don't to insta, Snapchat, twitter or other socials.

I was in my teens / twenties in the nineties. I can barely remember them.

This has just reminded me of another advantage of the 90s. Children still weren't so infantilised by their parents that they weren't equipped to go out into the adult world without needing "safe spaces "

Much happier. I left school in 1994 ad although the economic situation was bleak it was still better than today. When New Labour won in 1997 there was definitely a feeling of euphoria all over the country. Even in the early 2000s when the internet was in its infancy. The internet of today and social media makes the early internet days of chatrooms seem so bloody innocent.

Incidentally, I remember my parents in the 90s complaining about how shit they were and how much better everything had been 30 years earlier when they were young. Dad in particular hated the fashions of the time and couldn't understand why everyone wasn't still dressed like it was the 60s and 70s.

I think what's interesting about the past is that I certainly dressed completely different to my parents. Now a 14 yr old will often be wearing similar stuff to a 45 yr old.