Weird to think just how much our lifetime revolved around landlines .
If you lived through the ’90s, then you probably remember thinking what a futuristic world we were living in — there was the internet, cellphones, cable TV with hundreds of channels, every movie you wanted to see was on VHS, etc. But, LOL, it was actually such a simpler time compared to today, and all that stuff we used to do feels downright antiquated now.*
Recently, I came across a Reddit thread where userApart-Scalehad that in mind when theyasked: “What was normal in the 1990s but rare or nonexistent now?”
1.“Being completely unreachable by anyone for an entire day or more with no one thinking that it was unusual or rude.”
2.“Taking your disposable camera to get developed, and having no idea if any of your pictures were evenusableuntil you got the pictures back.”
3.“MTV playing music videos.”
4.“Coin arcades in malls. And the malls, I guess.”
5.“A printed list of family and friends' phone numbers stuck on the fridge.”
6.“Calling the movie theater or looking in the paper for movie times.”
7.“Playing multiplayer video games with all of the players IN the room together. We had some pretty heated N64 parties.”
8.“Showing up at someone’s house unannounced because you were in the neighborhood and wanted to say hi.”
9.“Having to talk to your friends' parents for a couple minutes while you waited for your friend to come to the phone.”
10.“When picking someone up from the airport, you could wait for them at their gate.”
11.“Video rental stores. Blockbuster was big, but there were lots of locally owned businesses, too. I miss being able to go through the aisles and discover something new.”
12.“The Yellow Pages.”
13.“Giving a meeting point and a meeting time in case we get lost.”
14.“The printing of directions didn’t start until the 2000s. In the ’90s, you just had to know or ask someone to write it down.”
15.“Calling from a payphone for a ride but calling collect and saying your name as ‘I’m here come get me’ to save the quarter.”
16.“I used to write 10-page letters to a girl I knew in Norway, and she did the same for me back in the States. I’d get, like, one a month, and it was so exciting to read them. People had to put so much thought into those letters before the internet.”
17.“Hotlines for the weather report, current time, and movie show times.”
18.“Floppy disks. My parents had a file cabinet full of those things.”
19.“Pressing play and record at the same time.”
20.“Keeping a binder full of CDs in your car.”
21.“Home telephone and answering machine. Also with these, memorizing phone numbers.”
22.“Dial-up internet.”
23.And lastly: “In general…just waiting for things, alone with only your thoughts. Game Boy ran out of battery? Didn’t bring a book? Time to people watch. Not a critique on how people are now, more like a critique on just myself. But man, my attention span has plummeted since smart phones/social media. I honestly can barely watch a movie anymore.”
You can read the full thread of responses onReddit.
Note : Some responses have been edited for distance and/or clarity .
