19 Experiences From Back Then That Confuse Young Folks

Buzz Feed

22-05-2025

The world is constantly changing, and societal norms and experiences change with it. Recently, Redditor u/pascalisntpunk asked the older adults of the Reddit Community to share the things about how the world "used to be" that younger folks would never understand, and as a Gen Z'er, some of these surely surprised me:
"There was trash everywhere. Cigarette butts were practically furniture that we just understood would always be everywhere."
—AllRushMixTapes
"When I was a kid, corporations didn't own every store. Local families did, and the money stayed in the area. Now, every dollar goes to a rich man in another state."
"Being bored. They say boredom is the only time you realize what your interests are as a kid/teen. If you're not bored, you never learn who you are and what you like doing. People who kill their potential by consuming infinite amounts of TV or media on their phone or computer are what causes these types of casualties. Of course, it's a matter of perspective."
—worgenhairball01
"Darkness. Real darkness. Nowadays, if you wake up in the middle of the night, the damn clock tells you the time and there are little lights everywhere from various appliances and devices. Even when you get a drink of water, there's the stove light, computer monitor — hell, even the dishwasher has a light on it. There are lights EVERYWHERE. I kind of hate it. Remember when you turned out the bedside lamp and it would just be...night?"
"Sometimes, there was just no way of knowing things. You'd see an actor on a TV show and know you've seen them before, but you'd just have to wonder where because you couldn't look up their filmography."
"Before everything was made of plastic, there was broken glass all the time. I think about this a lot, and I hope someone older than me can confirm."
"Things took time. We mailed letters and made phone calls to a single phone in a home or business. Photos took days to develop. News arrived in the daily newspaper or at 5 p.m. on one of our three TV channels. We used paper maps to navigate; we watched movies at the theater or, years later, on late-night TV. We checked out books at the library and made travel arrangements at an agency that took days to book. It was a slower pace of life, and we accepted it."
—Either_Low_60
"Silence."
"I'm not quite sure how to make this point, but it was mostly mutually understood that parents had an adult life separate from their kids, and that there was some distance and privacy that benefited the kids, too. Childhood entailed more privacy for kids, I think, and working things out on one's own was just how a lot of things got taken care of. Adulthood was different, too. For adults who have kids, that seems to be the defining factor of their adulthood, and it takes a lot more time, energy, and money than it used to. And I think you can say that kids used to look more at adulthood as the thing to move toward, while adults didn't look at youth as life's peak experience."
"They generally were not dressing the same way their kids dressed or doing the same sorts of activities that kids do. They weren't so focused on staying young forever. I'm not saying that one is inherently better than the other, just that there has been a real change in the meanings of childhood and adulthood (in the US, at least)."—Ahjumawi
"As a child, I could look up at night and easily see the ribbon of the Milky Way stretching across the sky. Today, we're lucky if we can make out the brightest of stars."
"Not knowing or caring what everybody was up to every minute of the day. You'd find out if someone was trying to get in touch with you when you'd come home at the end of the day and listen to your landline telephone's answering machine (if you even had one)."
—PilotoPlayero
"The joy of simplicity."
"Walking into a music store and browsing the bins. Finding a unique-looking record and buying it without knowing what you might hear, then taking it home and listening to it from start to finish. There was so much good music discovered that way."
—Comprehensive-Cow128
"You could do stupid shit, and there were no pictures or videos online to prove it."
"Being alone, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean, like, going for a walk on a sunny day and being completely and utterly out of reach of anyone — it's just you, your thoughts, and maybe a book. It's not just a young person problem either; my similarly aged sisters and in-laws think it's odd that I switch my phone off, work in the garden without my phone on me, and turn it off at night."
—indifferent-times
"Being able to function in your everyday life without carrying around a giant cup of water."
"How little outside stimulus we had and how peaceful that was. My family rarely listened to the radio. We had a record player, but only about five records. We watched TV for a couple of hours — mostly the evening news and only an hour or so of programming per day. We had a daily newspaper and books. We talked, played, did chores, rode bikes, made up games, went to the beach, and walked outside in the hills. Now, I shower with a podcast on and garden while listening to music. I sometimes wonder why I need all this in my life."
—Botryoid2000
"The lack of a 24/7 news cycle and the constant drumbeat of ratings-driven negativity. The world is objectively less violent and dangerous today than it was 50 years ago, but you just try telling young folks that."
Lastly: "There used to be conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, and the two parties used to negotiate with each other and pass bipartisan bills on a regular basis."
If you're an older adult, what's something about how the world used to be that younger people these days would never understand? Let us know in the comments, or you can anonymously submit your thoughts using the form below!