To think the 90's/early 2000's was when we peaked and everything has gone downhill since due to technology

[SonnyHoney]

To think the 90s/early 2000s was when we peaked and everything has gone downhill since due to technology.

Bear in mind I was only a child/teen then (mid 30s now).
There was just the right amount of technology.
People just seemed happier.

I wish I could have raised my children in a similar environment to what my mother raised me in.

Unfortunately those who are being harmed the most by social media don't realise it so they won't be making the choice not to use it.

It was so much better then, people socialising all of the time. You had to go out to have contact and communication with others. This is why the pubs are struggling now, the young ones (and older) just meet online now through social media and dating apps. If you wanted to meet someone back in the day you had to go out!
Now since covid us Gen X’s don’t bother neither, it’s just not the same sadly.
Thank god I’ve got a fit man to shag or life would be boring! Met him back in the day in 2008 but there was so much choice back then I didn’t care about seeing him again. My marriage broke up and then he popped up on my instagram and we reconnected on there, would never have bumped into him out on the drink in this day and age, so I’m guessing all others meet that way too these days 🤷‍♀️

This .

When social media hadn’t been invented yet, I remember this comment on teletext from about 1997, on Backchat: a page in which teenagers could write in, and so was a forerunner to social media, and if you were lucky, your comment would be shown for the nation to see. It was:

”Backchat is brill, because of the stupid things you all talk about. Keep up the good work, it’s so funny!”

(The Teletubbies was a popular topic, among teenagers at the time.) This comment sums up the whole of modern social media, including mumsnet, arguing about shoes off, for example.

Absolutely agree. I’m glad I brought my kids up before their whole lives were entwined with social media.

Absolutely. Smartphones have helped along the death of normality.
Trump, brexit, reform, all crazy all pointless, spurred on by ignorance and hate.

I think everyone has a different perspective on it depending upon your life events over time. Many people have made really interesting comments that have made me think and reflect so thank you. All I’d say is that I’m very thankful for medical advancements over the last couple of decades, as it is very likely that at least two of my family would not have survived without them, so for me the advanced technology has literally been a life saver.

This 100% Add to this the insidious and meteoric rise of social media and you have a society that is entirely self contained and seemingly unfeeling and uncaring of anyone else's concerns but their own desires, wants and interests. It's depressing.

People were well off early 2000 - oil price and new internet companies were making a bomb. Hence people with limited income being allowed to get mortgages on huge houses. Which caused the 2008 banking crises

I miss the days before digital cameras. There was excitement in waiting for your holiday photos to be developed, it felt like your holiday was never really over until you’d seen the photos, then there was the pleasure of putting them in an album.

I feel like I was lucky. Late 80s you could just ask for a council house. I'm from a big city. They put young people like me on the really rough estates, but you had a home at an affordable rent.

First kid 1991, the maternity ward was half empty and plenty of staff. Sure, the place was old and really needed a lick of paint, but there were actual beds and nurses to support. I had a normal birth and was still in 5 days - lots of stitches.

I could live on my wages. Was a secretary. Paid £11,500 pa full time, rent was something like £1,750 pa. After second kid, shopping was £50 pw. Husband was at uni, no loans, no tuition fees, he actually got a grant. Childcare was £6 for a half day (from 8am - 1pm or 1pm to 6pm) with food all in. Once they were 3, they went morning or afternoons to school with free food and wrap around.

Housing bubble had burst end of the 1980s / beginning of 1990s, which was very hard for some people. I ended up buying under 'do it yourself shared ownership' (you choose the house, purchase a % of it and a housing association purchases the rest of it and you rent that). Like, we paid for our 25% outright because you could save that much - as a secretary married to a student working part-time.

I hated Thatcher, but it feels as if New Labour did a right number on people - PFI really screwed things up. I don't think we recovered from that and the financial crash of 2008 was the cherry on the cake.

It's interesting following the sharp investor platforms. They don't know how to keep their money safe and growing these days. Mark Carney (was Governor of the Bank of England, now PM of Canada) made some pertinent remarks recently: he reckons it's all going to come crashing down on a global scale in the not too distant future. Dollar is basically being devalued at the moment. Stock market is volatile. Interest rates are garbage. All 'speculate to accumulate' avenues are pretty sewn up. The housing market, especially in the UK, is probably going to collapse - once people realise the biggest redistribution of wealth is going to be from their nest egg property into private healthcare as they age.

It's a mess.

Facebook was in the UK in 1995, but a slow burn, and started taking off big time in 1999.

@Galdos

is wiki wrong?

“In January 2004, Zuckerberg began writing a code for a new website, known as "TheFacebook”

https://www.meta.com/en-gb/about/company-info/?srsltid=AfmBOoqg09troMjPlwJonrbCk1lb71iKNBsPRLwQ2i7M7TuAdS1Yq0BB

well Meta have a different take on their own history

You're ten years out. Friends Reunited site came before Facebook but even that was from early 2000s onwards.

Where I grew up in the 70s and 80s, we all knew we were living at ground zero under a first wave target.

I think that everything has dismproved considerably since smartphones were introduced .
They have changed society considerably.

You’re getting mixed up. There was definitely no Facebook in the 1990s. You must be thinking of another website / forum. Facebook reached the UK in the mid-late 2000s. That’s a fact.

The planet is being destroyed - no 'if' about it. This is not just down to numbers, but much more about economic activity. Google suggests that global per capita CO2 emissions have increased something like five times since 1900.
Second, it's true that Africa's population is currently increasing, but the birthrate is falling quite quickly, so this will also stabilise within one or two generations.
Finally, I totally agree that technology is (at least in theory) neutral, and can be - and is used for human improvement. Before that can happen, someone really needs to have a word with Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and all their mates though!

That’s hard.

Thanks. To go back to the earlier message, we weren't actually scared, but we absolutely were aware of it. I don't think of it as being difficult or hard - it just was.

In about 2008, I remember someone wearing a T-shirt saying "Myspace is for losers". (Myspace being a similar idea to Facebook.)

No, not really. OP specifically referenced the late 90s, early 00s. Many people had the internet but smart phones weren’t a thing.

I remember ‘fuck MySpace, come to MyPlace’ 😂 tragic