People are less spontaneous now than they used to be

[LittleMissUnreasonable]

I was born in the 80s, grew up in 90s and this is something I've just realised. People seemed to have much more time back then than they do now. Previously if you wanted to chat to someone, you'd give them a call on the landline, no scheduled "are you free next week for a call".
People would pop around and 9/10 someone would be in to offer a cuppa and a chat. Even meeting up, it was a case of "shall we meet in town at 12 on Saturday?" Now it's hard arranging to meet friends with a month's notice as everyone seems to be busy

What happened? I know I'm probably looking back on the 90s with misty eyes, but things just seemed a lot more..social

In the 90s you were a teenager and so were your friends so on average they had fewer responsibilities than people in their 40s.

I think people are more busy now. Everyone was at home on a Sunday because there was nothing else to do.

Sorry @Snowdropsarecoming I meant in general rather than just myself. I was talking about my parents, relatives and friends parents from experience

I agree. DD's friend's mother rang up to see if she could come swimming with the friend in about 10 mins. We were just kicking around at home so of course DD was delighted! I do regret the lack of ability to drop in or call someone for a catch up. These days it seems rude to 'doorstep' someone although I don't think it really is. We would be pleased to see any of our friends.

Is it because we have so many ways of communicating now that we feel obliged to use them? Or a function of the 'busy' modern lifestyle?

Because communication is easier now so it’s easier to check someone is going to be in for visitors or whatever.

Oh I totally agree I absolutely had the scheduling of phone calls..... it just adds one more thing to my to do list and I end up spending the week dreading it .... maybe I'm a bit weird.

*hate not had

I agree, I think it being much easier to communicate has actually over complicated stuff. Plenty of people are now generally anti social as well and would find an unplanned phone call or knock on the door as anxiety inducing.

The 90s were great OP - no fucking internet to speak of and no crappy social media. The world was better for it.

COVID means practically everything needs booking in advance, even coffee it seems!

I don’t know.

Were people more spontaneous or was it socially accepted and expected for people to come over when they decided/wanted to?

What I saw growing up, there were many kids my age that had a parent at home and if they didn’t many parents didn’t care if children had other children over with no supervision nor needed to ask their parents for permission. My grandparents and my parents had living rooms but it was only for guests and if you were going in there, you didn’t sit on the furniture.

I didn’t like people popping around unannounced to be honest because it would mean we would have to put on proper clothes even if we were just saying hi and expected to chat for a few minutes. I also didn’t like going to other people’s home unannounced because I would be so excited to see them only for them not to be home. My dad had form for this because he loves to drive around and swing by unannounced where my mother would call to be sure someone was home so we wouldn’t waste time doing a round trip for nothing.

Oh definitely, we always had people calling in as they were passing to go to the shop (on foot) or relatives calling on a Sunday in the car.

Trying to get hold of my friends now is a 5 message affair, quite sad. Saying that my teenage years were spent living in fear of people just calling in as our toilet was at the back by the kitchen and it'd mean talking to said visitor to get past 😂

It’s phones & the internet at your fingers. I like spontaneity but it’s hard because people book things up so early so you end up having to do similar.

I literally LOVE spontaneity! My friend and I regularly do impromptu dinners, coffee, whatever but I have some people who literally have to schedule having a crap 5 weeks in advance. Hate it.

There's a lot more for people to do these days that doesn't involve being social with friends.

I'm reading a book about Jane Austen and what was considered polite entertainment back in the late 1700s. The young ladies of the middle classes/fringes of gentry spent most of their unmarried lives calling upon other unmarried ladies it seems. Like in Little Women set a few decades later, they'd just spend whole days calling round houses.

Apart from sewing, playing the piano, and a little light reading, I suspect there was fuck all else to do. I think OP is right perhaps we've gone too far the other way and it'd be nice to be more social and spontaneous, but not to the extent of my whole day revolving around visiting people 😁

This! So many people on MN who can't cope with an unexpected knock on the door! I'm not in the UK, and people here do still phone unannounced, or pop in to visit friends, family, or neighbours. However, I'm even older than OP so not sure what young people are doing. The number of anti-social MNers I find astonishing.

I hate having to schedule time with friends months in advance. I miss the - free on Saturday? Not what are you doing in 3 weeks time at 11:27?

Going on a day out has to be booked far in advance now too in order to get a cheaper price or any chance of attending.
gigs sell out in half an hour. In the early 2000s you could decide to get tickets the week before and the price was the same not 10x the early bird price.

I remember my parents and their siblings would all randomly visit one another usually on Saturday evenings and this was just part of life sometimes you would prop into an aunts and other family would be there too . This was in the 90s and I can’t imagine anyone in my family doing this now all contact seems to be done over Facebook. It’s sad , I remember during the first lockdown everyone was going on about having big meet ups and parties and celebrating once it was all over but in reality there’s been nothing since the restrictions vanished . It makes me sad but it seems to be the way things are now .

It just seems so much harder these days to be spontaneous because everything requires more planning.
20 years ago, I had a season ticket at a premier league club. Only the fixtures for the biggest games would sell out - the rest of the time you could rock up at kick off and buy a ticket on the gate. These days there’s over 100,000 on the waiting list for a season ticket and you can’t get tickets for any league fixture for love nor money.

Our local soft play - you used to be able to turn up when you liked and stay as long as you liked. Now since covid it’s all sessions at set times and you have to pre book.

Totally agree

I agree with you.
Personally I love the freedom of having no plans and being able to be spontaneous.
But notice these days can walk into an empty restaurant and they will expect you to have made a booking.
Was actually thinking about this today when I was young I went to a sport one or two evening a week. Walked or cycled my parents had no involvement. Now my kids are involved in sports I have an app must accept if they will attend, various messages sent each week. Must pick up child ... Think so much time is taken up planing now leaves little time to do anything.
Hopefully AI will help 😂

I hate having to schedule time with friends months in advance. I miss the - free on Saturday? Not what are you doing in 3 weeks time at 11:27?

Agree, though I think a lot of family and friends live far away from us now too which doesn't help.

This.

It's actually really sad. My depression and anxiety has come back and I'm sure the lack of family and friends nearby plays a contribution but it's the same for many many people now sadly.

I agree and there are clearly many reasons for it...tech/Comms, COVID meaning everything had to be booked in advance, busy lives with activities, and I think also people living further away from friends and family. My husband had one of those families where they would all just spontaneously end up at someone's house at the weekend, but they all lived within a 5 minute walk of each other.

But I do hate that everything has to be booked in advance. DD is a teen now but when she was little I'd like to stand to go swimming with one of her little pals and then we couldn't get a slot for about 10 days, by which point I was back at work and half term was over. I guess I should have booked weeks earlier, but it still feels like having to book fairly mundane things like swimming or a museum just sort of sucks the fun out of it a bit. You might not feel like doing the thing by the time the booked slot comes around, or it's a blazing hot day and kids would far rather be in the paddling pool than changing in a heated leisure centre.

I do also think there is a thing of people not committing as freely as they once did. I think it's a combination of kids of activities and the recognition that they might need some down time, or that plans can change and make other plans hard to accommodate. We have some friends who are a 5 minute drive away and we have between us found that making 'plans' means we rarely see each other (yes can't do that Friday night, DD will be at x and DH might be away with work etc etc) but we see far more if them when we just message 'curry tonight at ours?'. Because sometimes you think you shouldn't commit to a plan in advance for various reasons but come the day, it would have been fine. So we aren't planning anything anymore!

So true op. Today, kids especially, people have so many scheduled activities, often 2 per day, weekends are often full too. Parents are juggling work, and many families are separated meaning children are with their other parent causing further complications.

Its changed even since mine were children in the 00's and 10's. But I've never scheduled a telephone call (except work conference calls) I still just pick up my phone!

Thankfully where we live we can be spontaneous, we go out for dinner without reservations (or I just call ahead before leaving the house) we can go swimming any time for free if hardy (marine lake) and have lovely pubs with free unticked live music every weekend. I don't like planning ahead for these sorts of low key fun things because they really aren't important, if something more important comes up I would not want to turn that down because of these