I Remember Life Before the Internet

I grew up in the 60's and 70's before the internet and cell phones and such. It was a wonderful time. Everyone interacted face to face or called each other on land lines. We played outside a lot and rode our bicycles all over town and it was a city of 45,000 people. We were a lot more fit than kids today and we developed life long friendships.

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kayoshin · 36-40, M

On the other hand if you were unpopular or unfit your "fun" and activity options were a lot more limited. Just saying i have quite some experience of being a child in a tech free country (comunism made sure we lived the 70s in the 80s and so on) and if you were not a popular kid it was far from the pretty picture you portray. At least nowdays kids don't pick on other kids for doing anything tech related or for talking about star wars and star trek and gamer isn't a dirty insult anymore (in the 90s in my school the rank went gay<gamer<loser<chump<nobody<cool<popular).
Tell you what I'd change a large part of my childhood for the childhood they have now, and don't worry even though I spent a lot of time with books and not roaming the streets I didn't get fat and I'm 33 and still keep in touch with my best friend that i met at 12years of age.
Your mileage may vary.

annamarie65 · 56-60, F

the difference is you were in a different country that was communist. i was not a popular child,. quite the opposite, but i always had plenty of kids to play with and hang out with...

kayoshin · 36-40, M

"but i always had plenty of kids to play with and hang out with." you may not have been the peak of popularity but that doesn't mean you were unpopular. Actually the ratio was always higher in the male area of unpopular children. Very few girls were unpopular VERY VERY few but their life was made even more horrible than for the unpopular boys. Girls are a whole new level of cruel to other girls.

annamarie65 · 56-60, F

@kayoshin: i was completely unpopular whether you wish to believe it or not. as i said you cant compare a communist country against the usa...its like comparing apples and oranges.

kayoshin · 36-40, M

Lol so you are telling me the world unpopular means something else in the USA cause from how your media and movies portrais it, it seems exactly the same as down here: the very popular kids were the pack that leads, the popular kids are the normals that play together then you get the rebel groups that band together in small friend circles and then you have the unpopular kids that fit nowhere, don't get picked by any team at sports, don't get in any group activity and either don't want to play with other kids or the other way around.
It's strange that you say that's an impossibility when i have friends from the USA complaining about that exact thing being their childhood.

kayoshin · 36-40, M

Oh and i forgot to mention that I do have a western perspective as i moved to Spain and the only difference i see is that the generation that lived our way are now in their late60s-70s.

annamarie65 · 56-60, F

unpopular means no one wants anything to do with you. dont act like you know me because you do not..you forgot to add something to your list of least to most popular...you forgot to add those who are handicapped.spain is not the same as the usa either. again you are comparing apples and oranges. i am in the same genaration as the person that wrote this post to begin with.

kayoshin · 36-40, M

"unpopular means no one wants anything to do with you. " exactly so if you had plenty of kids to play with where do you get off calling yourself unpopular?

kayoshin · 36-40, M

I didn't add the handicaped because either they had so severe handicaps they didn't even make the list aka went to specialised institutions or could be anywhere in the line, ove of the most popular kids in my highschool was handicaped also not even the popular kids dared make fun of the handicaped it was considered a taboo something only a loser would do.

annamarie65 · 56-60, F

yes i had plenty of kids to play with who were also as unpopular as i was. i was equal to any other loser in the unpopular crowd. well i guess i dont fit into your list then. people in the united states make fun of all unpopular kids..whether they are handicapped or not...moreso if they are handicapped...i know that for a fact.

bigjohndl · 70-79, M

I disagree. Kids today are cyber bullying and hiding behind anonymity. Kids are killing themselves because of it. Where I lived, all were accepting. I rode bikes with fat kids (not as fat as kids tend to be today), dumb kids, black kids, asian kids, and whomever else. The popular kids may not have wanted to ride but they lived amongst themselves. But they were welcome to join us.

kayoshin · 36-40, M

"yes i had plenty of kids to play with who were also as unpopular as i was. i was equal to any other loser in the unpopular crowd. " ok see you are confused you are definetely in a clique you're just pissed you were not in the highly popular clique the main stars of the show, now try to remember the odd kid the one who wasn't even in your group (not necesarily cause you didn't let him could be an introvert he just didn't hang out with anyone) etc, that's the unpopular kid.
You had your "unpopular crowd" that makes you popular but only in a smaler crowd not the whole school.
Are you telling me you went in the only school in the USA that didn't have unpopular and isolated kids? Cause i can google examples fast if you're telling me this doesn't happen in your country.

kayoshin · 36-40, M

I agree with you on the handicapped issue and i found that strange whenever i saw it in the media sincerely i looked up to USA in a lot of ways but i felt like it was even behind comunist countries in that area. I mean your people treat your handicaped like our government treated ours :)

kayoshin · 36-40, M

Again i never said the less popular groups didn't get shit from the more popular groups, i just said that didn't make them unpopular kids, it made them UNPOPULAR GROUPS that's a big step above the bottom feeding unpopular kids.
The most famous unpopular kid i can tell you from your culture would be "Carrie" if you know the SK book or movies.

annamarie65 · 56-60, F

amen bigjohndl...i have been cyber bullied by mondern punks, i have been harassed and bullied by those i went to school with because i was different, i was handicapped, and yes i had a small clique of friends who were equally unpopular as i was....but i was even on the bottom rung of their own ladder, as i could not keep up with them. you are not listening....everywhere has unpopular kids..i told you i was even unpopular amongst them. there is nothing to google. i was very much like carrie, but i was even worse...she was not handicapped, she was just labelled as unpopular because she was different.

kayoshin · 36-40, M

@annamarie65: You just made my point then if even the other kids left you behind at least today you can entertain yourself in the good old days what did you have books and... Little other things. I didn't. Say unpopular kids didn't exist back then I said life sucked more for us back then.

kayoshin · 36-40, M

@annamarie65: I am not saying kids are better today but that I would rather be an outcast today with the world at my fingers than before the tech age.

annamarie65 · 56-60, F

that is YOUR opinion. you cant compare your culture in another country and in another decade, against our country in the same decade. you are still trying to compare apples to oranges so i wont keep trying to explain something to you that you dont understand...and im tired of arguing. so i am done with you...nuff said. I will not comment further.

kayoshin · 36-40, M

What decade is that? In case you didn't notice he said before the internet. Not a clear date. I just said when before the internet was for us because we got the internet later than you guys. If you want to live with nostalgia glasses it's your choice.
I do realise it's. My opinion but before internet is before internet in any corner of the world amd you will notice I never said his storey isn't true FOR SOME while I said ON THE OTHER HAND....others had it harder without the internet and if you can't empathise with that then it's your problem and not mine neither the orange tree's Neither the apple tree's