#nostalgia #technology #childhoodmemories #2020skids #nostalgic
🕹️ What is something that 2020s kids will never get to experience? 📼
As we move further into the 21st century, it’s inevitable that certain aspects of our childhoods will become obsolete. With the rapid advancements in technology and the ever-changing societal norms, there are many things that kids growing up in the 2020s will never have the chance to experience. Let’s take a trip down memory lane and explore some of the nostalgic things that are now a thing of the past for today’s generation.
## The Joy of Playing Outside
### Remember the days when kids used to spend hours playing outside without the need for screens or gadgets? Here are some outdoor activities that 2020s kids might miss out on:
– Riding bikes around the neighborhood
– Building forts in the backyard
– Playing tag or hide and seek with friends
– Jumping rope or playing hopscotch
– Collecting seashells at the beach or exploring nature trails
## Handwritten Letters and Snail Mail
### In a world dominated by emails and text messages, the art of writing and receiving handwritten letters has become a rare and special occasion. Here are some things that kids from the 2020s may never experience:
– Pen pals from around the world
– Sending and receiving birthday cards in the mail
– Waiting eagerly for the postman to deliver a letter from a loved one
– Keeping a collection of stamps and stationary for correspondence
## The Thrill of Renting Movies from Blockbuster
### Before the age of streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, families used to rent movies from their local video rental store. Here are some things that 2020s kids will never get to experience:
– Walking through the aisles of Blockbuster to browse for the perfect movie
– Reading the back of VHS or DVD cases to decide which film to rent
– Popping popcorn and settling in for a movie night at home
– Returning the movie rental before the due date to avoid late fees
## Dial-Up Internet and Landline Phones
### With the prevalence of smartphones and high-speed internet, the days of dial-up internet and landline phones are a distant memory for kids growing up in the 2020s. Here are some things they may never experience:
– The sound of a dial-up modem connecting to the internet
– Waiting patiently for webpages to load
– Using a landline phone to call friends and family
– Writing down phone numbers in a physical address book
## Saturday Morning Cartoons and After-School Specials
### Back in the day, kids used to look forward to Saturday mornings and after-school hours to watch their favorite cartoons and TV shows. Here are some of the classic programs that 2020s kids will never get to experience:
– Watching Looney Tunes or Saturday morning cartoons
– Tuning in to after-school specials like “Boy Meets World” or “Saved by the Bell”
– Waiting for the latest episode of a series to air on TV
– Seeing the premiere of a new show on a designated day and time
In conclusion, while the world continues to progress and evolve, there are certain things from the past that hold a special place in our hearts. Whether it’s the joy of playing outside, the nostalgia of renting movies from Blockbuster, or the thrill of writing and receiving handwritten letters, there are many experiences that kids from the 2020s will never get to enjoy. Let’s cherish these memories and pass them on to future generations so they can appreciate the simpler times of our childhoods.
Life without smartphones.
But, also think that this is more “1st world problems” type of answer. So, please no hate.
Waiting for a new episode to come on at 7:30, yelling into the kitchen that it’s starting.
Calling your crushes house and having to politely ask a very scary dad if you can speak with Tanya. And then they say, that depends, who’s calling?
Recess appears to have been phased out of most schools in my area.
Rotary Phones
Pagers, Digi-pets
Personal privacy
Downloading a song for 2 hours and finding out it’s a virus
The incredible pre catlytic converter Smog pollution of the 1970s
Walter Cronkite being the most widely respected and popular “influencer”, media personality and journalist in human hitory.
A grown man who spoke briefly to the world every night in a way that embodied everything right about the free press. He cried when we landed on the moon, made no pretention that he knew what to say when he reported the JFK had Died in Dallas, and single handedly told the politicians to take their dick out of the world’s asshole and end the Vietnam War.
[https://youtu.be/Dn2RjahTi3M](https://youtu.be/Dn2RjahTi3M)
”Wally, say something, I’m speechless’
”And there they sit”
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMF58ZP681A&t=317s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMF58ZP681A&t=317s)
Dial up internet and AOL chat rooms.
Exploration.
As kids we played video games but we also got outdoors. Sometimes finding areas of forest to go and investigate. We enjoyed checking out odd areas people generally would never go into such as those little wooded areas in between roads. Our parents didn’t care as long we gave them an idea of what we were doing ahead of time in case we got lost or hurt.
We would have a small fire just enough to roast some marshmallows and then put it out and usually make it back in time for supper.
tangled up telephone cords
Going to the movie store.
Being responsible for zero parental contact and simply just needing to come home when the streetlights come on.
Driving to someplace new with an actual physical map
Calling your friend’s house and their parents pick up. Then you have to ask the parent if you can talk to your friend lol. I had all my closest friend’s landline numbers memorized.
Blockbuster!
Timing snack breaks during adverts and rushing to quickly get back in time
Privacy. Doing stupid things without the whole world knowing about it on TikTok.
Watching that ticker at the bottom of the tv to see if school is closed only for them to cut to commercial when it’s time for yours to show up. I watched that thing like an nba draft
I was at work the other day when our department’s landline phone started ringing. One of my coworkers (my age-ish, 30s) called out “I’ll get it!” I felt a weird sort of sad nostalgic pang. You don’t hear that much anymore.
Comfortable summer temperatures.
Buying a video game and it has everything it should on it without having to provide an update or paying for extra content.
Downloading porn from WinMX and Kazaa, with hilariously ridiculous titles like “Hot 18yr old babysitter fucked by home intruders xxx hot sex fuck cum big tits xxx”. And of course there’s no thumbnails like PornHub or whatever so you had no idea what you were getting yourself into.
ABC’s TGIF lineup.
Calling someone and asking is so-and-so there?
Their family not being on Facebook
Having to listen/watch the nightly news with your parents because you only have one tv.
Freedom from intrusive politics being tied into fucking everything for some reason.
Being a child in India in the 1520s.
Hearing your favorite song on the radio and waiting for it to come on again so you can record it on a blank cassette tape to listen to later.
Having a CD binder the size of Merriam Webster’s dictionary for road trips.
Taking a CD Walkman on a walk and making sure you didnt walk too fast or the CD skipped
Winter.
Waking up early on Saturday morning so you can watch the next episode of your favorite cartoon
Being disconnected.
There were periods of my life growing up, hours or even days at a time, where there was genuinely no way to reach me or my parents. In the 90’s, growing up, most people didn’t have cellphones. They existed but they were *really* expensive. I remember when my mom got her first cellphone. She always turned it off when she got home and stuck it in a drawer. Why would she need a cellphone at home?
We had the internet but it was slow and we had limited access to it, often on a family computer visible to everyone and maybe for an hour or two.
And if you go back a little further than that, answering machines were expensive and uncommon so you either reached someone or you didn’t. There was no constant demand from everyone for everyone.
I definitely remember calling a friend to hang out, their parent answering, and telling me they were already hanging out with someone else. “Okay, cool, I’ll try again later.”
I had no way to reach them. Which meant they got to be fully present with whoever they were with and weren’t talking to me or anyone else while they were with that friend.
That level of disconnect is something that, in hindsight, I really miss. You were wherever you were with whomever you were with and that was it. People took hours to reach and that was normal and, I think, a really good thing.
Scheduling your television consumption around an ironclad tv schedule, pre-streaming and pre-TiVo/Recording.
Not to get all Boomer sounding, but the strict schedule and dealing with the consequences of being late/missing entire episodes, I personally feel, had an enormous impact on society’s overall sense of entitlement.
A life without immediate gratification. I feel like 90s/00s kids might be the last to have experienced what its like to have to wait for that good thing you want