Senior citizens, do you feel less fortunate because there was no Internet or anything else in your days?
Sweetness and Light asked:
If what you prize is something else, please mention what that is.
If what you prize is something else, please mention what that is.
And in any case, justify your answer.
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
September 10th, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
These are still my days! I may be on what you consider the wrong side of 30 but there’s still a lot of life in me and I enjoy it to the fullest. I do not feel less fortunate because I grew up without the internet, and the notion of or anything else is quite preposterous. There is definitely an internet in my days now and there’ll be one in my future. In my youth, if that is really what you are referring to, there were plenty of diversions and things to keep me occupied. I’ll list a few: reading, walking, singing, dancing, sports, games, studying, working, vacationing, visiting friends and family. Life was, and continues to be, very full.
September 13th, 2011 at 11:27 pm
Caffeinated Content
I am fortunate to have grown up at a time when most of the things you use today were being developed; are you assuming that older people were somehow deprived of something important?
Today’s electronic games still do not come close to the feel of a pinball machine. Perhaps your children will have a holographic game that might come close, but we’ll just have to see if that happens.
I do appreciate the ease of finding information by doing ’searches’; however; we still do not have fully search-able databases that can compare with doing research by going to a library and looking things up in books and periodicals. No one has yet created fully search-able resources without going to periodicals and other ‘hard copy’ sources. There are many more very poorly researched ‘articles’ on the internet, you have to look through hundreds or thousands of questionable sources to find reliable information when you do an internet search, which can be a huge waste of time. The internet is a start, but it has a long way to go before it is a source of truly reliable information that is easy to find.
I loved it when my dad brought me to his work, and I could stand in a room full of huge computers. I loved watching the Apollo missions take off from Kennedy Space Center. I knew how to use 3 different types of radio equipment by the time I was 16 years old. Being able to do math problems without and with a calculator means that I’m less likely to make a mistake. The tomatoes that my grandfather grew in his yard are now available again, they are now called heirloom, and they are very good. I can do quite well with or without electricity…..how about you?
The sun and moon still rise and set……it seems to me that there are many things that really haven’t changed all that much since I was a young girl. I wonder what your grandchildren will think of your childhood?
September 14th, 2011 at 10:03 am
Caffeinated Content
Not all all.The internet and cell phones are nothing but tools to make our life easiers.We got along fine with snail mail and using a payphone to stay in contact with someone away from home.
I feel bless because parents communicated with their children via proper English in person rather than the sloppy abreviations used in text messaging.
Also people felt safer prior to the internet and horrible *** crimes were not committed. I wonder if this could be attributed to the lack of **** that was not available?
September 15th, 2011 at 9:11 am
Caffeinated Content
no….board games are better…i dont waste money on videogames
September 16th, 2011 at 7:54 am
Caffeinated Content
Why would not having the internet make me any less fortunate? We had what we had we learned to use the tools of the time. At least we could make prank phone calls without having the Police show up on our doorsteps! We didn’t have ATM machines either. That meant we actually HAD to walk into a bank to cash a check or make a deposit. No check cashing places on every corner with heavy fees high interest rates. Good Golly Miss Molly - HOW DID WE DO IT? Geez.
September 18th, 2011 at 9:50 am
Caffeinated Content
ur days are all the days u have untill u die,so these are still my days.actually,for those of us who worked at places like i.b.m,computers have been in use since the 1960’s.the internet is just a logical outgrowth from those beginings.so,we have’nt seen the net suddenly arise,we have witnessed and been a part of,its birth and progression-quite a different thing.justify my answer-we INVENTED computer technology,its not like we have been suddenly taken by surprise by it.so,why would we feel less fortunate?its been a part of my life from the 60’s,grew up in an i.b.m town.
September 21st, 2011 at 9:50 pm
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
when I was in highschool, the transistor (small, portable) radio appeared; that was impressive as was colored television
September 25th, 2011 at 2:33 am
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
Heck no -
First off- it was cool being around to play the very first video games!
Secondly - we had to use our minds more, I think……had to rely on oursleves to think of something fun to do!! And when we did come up with something, it usually involved going out somewhere - not just sitting in front of a screen.
And there was great music and concerts back then….fun clubs to hang out in……Cruise Nights down the main drag…. - whaddya mean there was nothing else???
(LOL)
September 27th, 2011 at 1:36 am
Caffeinated Content
I felt more fortunate before the internet came into play. The Internet or information highway has opened too many doors to the wrong people. Although it serves more good than harm, the harm it can cause in astronomical.
What I prize is what saw several years ago and still cannot get used to what I see today. I remember the days of honesty between us. Where people valued the life of others. When help was there without asking. When you saw someone in need and you weren’t classified as a hero for being a good person. That is the way it was as a natural state. Unfortunately that common decency factor is going away.
September 28th, 2011 at 6:43 am
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
Back in the day, we didn’t have computers, ipods, mp3 players, cellphones, or all the electronic goodies available today. Key word…..AVAILABLE.
It’s difficult for me to envision being less fortunate regarding the absence of those things. We didn’t know we didn’t have them. It’s kind of like we accepted what we had and dealt with it because that was the way it was. Not just for our family, either, it was much the same for everyone and we could no more miss these exotic toys of today than we could miss experiencing time travel.
I will say it would have been nice to have had a computer a few times, but looking back, it didn’t make any difference. We just had to work differently to get things done.
September 30th, 2011 at 12:02 am
Caffeinated Content
No, but I know it would have made some things more convenient and maybe save on gas when we went shopping when we lived in a rural area and had to drive many miles to find certain things. We managed just fine without a bunch of gadgets or electronics, and most of our fun was home-made.
I felt sorry for my daughter that she didn’t have a few years of life on a small family farm the way I did, and to live simply. There wasn’t peer-pressure to buy fancy designer clothes or athletic shoes, kids were happy for the most part with what they had. I know she longed for such a life deep-down, she loved the Little House on the Prairie tv show and bought some of the books and kept them. She even said if we won a big sweepstakes she wanted us to buy a farm and live out in the country.
September 30th, 2011 at 1:28 am
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
I remember the great summer evenings we spent out on the front porch, because it was too hot to stay inside. The lack of air-conditioning, internet, color television, etc., actually forced us to be outside. We kids played, our folks socialized with the neighbors, grandparents told great stories and we all enjoyed ourselves in ways that are nearly forgotten now.
September 30th, 2011 at 10:02 am
Caffeinated Content
We cannot miss what we never had. I love my computer and the Internet and use it daily but I think it is unfortunate that by using it, people are not learning how to do research at a primary source such as a reference book or court house records or personal interviews.
October 1st, 2011 at 10:07 pm
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
Less fortunate? of course not.
Thats like asking cave men if they longed for the days before they discovered fire.
Life and times move on and while I do look back at fond memories, I sure as heck don’t long for the days when the only running water was ME running after it.
And what do you mean or anything else?
We had plenty of things that the generation before did not have.
Thats how it works.
October 4th, 2011 at 5:57 am
Caffeinated Content
Well, you can’t miss something you never had…those things were not invented yet, so we lived perfectly well without them. We wrote letters, we hung around the public phone booth to ring our friends, we used our brains to do mental calculations, and we took photos and waited for the chemist to develop them. Life wasn’t so terrible !
Now, I love having the Internet and all those anything else things that you mention. I use the Internet every day, to write to friends, communicate on Facebook, I take pix with my phone and send them to people, and I text messages whenever I get the urge. I shop online, and use Google to solve questions that puzzle me. Its great having these things.
No doubt in the future, there will be other, improved things for us to use, and someone will ask you , do YOU feel less fortunate that they were not available in YOUR days ?
October 5th, 2011 at 6:05 am
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
But these are our days!, and us who use the internet, love it. Remember we had the Beatles,, Elvis.and Rock Roll live!, so we had our time, as well as today!, great….
October 6th, 2011 at 11:36 pm
Caffeinated Content
Yeah, I feel less fortunate, we had to Google by lamp light, in those days. Since our TVs were steam powered they didn’t last long, but that didn’t matter, since broadcasting hadn’t been invented. We had a radio, but if you didn’t turn the crystal right you couldn’t hear the static.
We used colored string in a clear straw for a thermometer, there being no such thing as mercury ,and could only see the doctor on sunny days since he had to hold us up to a window to see if we had broken bones. You’re lucky, you have X-rays.
I do miss that we didn’t have to justify just because some young dumbass with no sense of history said to.
October 8th, 2011 at 11:43 am
Caffeinated Content
No because we had allot of other things that you do not have today - more freedom - open space if you were willing to work and study opportunities to make a good life.
October 10th, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Caffeinated Content
The latest generation benefit greatly from the internet. We did not have such technological aids and as such were disadvantaged. Simple as that.
October 11th, 2011 at 7:48 am
Caffeinated Content
We had lots of other things to keep us entertained.
There was a war on when I was young, and we concentrated on dodging the German bombs.
And queueing for food that was rationed.
October 14th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
Caffeinated Content
I would have loved the internet when I was in school. I remember wanting a set of encyclopedia when I was a kid. I loved looking up things and still do. We never got the encyclopedia, so I would go to the library a lot to use theirs. Kids are so lucky now to have all this knowledge at their fingertips.
October 14th, 2011 at 7:33 pm
Caffeinated Content
No, I’m glad I ghrew up in a time of letter writing. I still prefer letters because of the personal touch.
October 16th, 2011 at 1:30 am
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
I need not justify anything. My generation has been called the Greatest Generation with full justification. And I am not less fortunate. I am a book guy and do not regret it in the slightest. I have yet to see anything that I will be called Great in recent times. Maybe soon but not yet.
October 16th, 2011 at 1:39 am
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
no - what I didn’t have then I didn’t miss now.
October 16th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
My days are now and I have the internet. Back when I was younger I didn’t need the internet, I had a job, friends and family to keep me busy. My main reason for having the internet now days is to talk to people I would have never met if I didn’t have it. I have been to visit 7 of my internet friends, some several times. How can I justify not having something that didn’t exist?
October 17th, 2011 at 1:08 pm
Caffeinated Content
Absolutely not. These days are still mine.
The net, as well as most technology, developed during our lifetimes. No justification needed. We’ve seen the evolution of, i.e. manual typewriters to Selectrics, to word processors, to computers with WP programs installed; transistor radios to Walkmans, now IPods. The younger generation just slid into technology, i.e., never experiencing typing on a manual, or using Write-Out.
October 17th, 2011 at 11:06 pm
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
No, not at all. My childhood was spent in poverty, no inside bath or shower or toilet, no TV, only me and Dad, no trips out, no family to visit, and so on. But I didn’t realise it at the time, one just existed and got on with it.It’s only when you look back that you realise how little you actually had.
So, me becoming a silver surfer as they say, has actually added a new dimension to my life, and I love it.
Take care everyone.
October 19th, 2011 at 11:38 pm
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
Why? You had more time to sit and talk to each other, now you don’t even see the faces of the people you talk too. When you talk to your family most of the time it is by hand held machine, not face to face! I don’t know if it is good or bad but it was more simple which I think was better???
October 20th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Caffeinated Content
Hon, as my mother used to say you don’t miss what you never had We never even could have dreamed of the progress that would be made. Going to the moon was sci-fi so, computers were really never thought about. Yet, we filled our time with things that would seem silly to you but delighted us. For instance, family interaction.
October 21st, 2011 at 10:58 am
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
Those who only know the internet have missed a life of being close to family, sharing things with family (like music, dining together, meeting with family on weekends or vacationing at grandmas for the summer, working on the yard, singing in the church choir and attending services together as a family, doing housework together, sewing and growing flowers and vegetables, putting in your own yard, and saving money from doing those things rather than using credit cards or going bankrupt). We would do volunteer work and help out our neighbors and share with them our food crops, would sit on the swing or stoop and talk and get to know each other, we would have our own businesses and not waste time in games (except for monopoly).
when you say there was no..anything else well there were at least four things: radio, tv, transportation/car, and the telephone, but sometimes we walked to friends, neighbors and relatives homes. Back then we were healthy (and the government didn’t have to tell us how to eat) we ate well from our gardens and walked a lot (even walked to the stores and church).
October 23rd, 2011 at 1:30 am
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
I feel more fortunate. I started working with computers in the early ’70’s before the internet. I worked for Ma Bell and the Yellow Pages, just down the road from Silicon Valley. Computers always remind me of work, by-the-way. Something I prize is my sense of nostalgia for a life you will never know. I would be very ashamed to have to admit to hours (felt) wasted on the internet when other responsibilities await me. The idea that some blogs have to issue NSFW, just so you won’t get caught says a lot about Digital America. I’m retired now and my time is my own. I can enjoy my life while my groceries are being scanned through the computer at WalMart by some robotic clerk, I can watch my 50 inch HDTV. I am happy that I can remember the difference between analog and digital and appreciate the difference. I don’t feel quite as empowered as you, just more grateful to have known before. Listen, I can remember when Los Angeles only had two tv channels and everyone knew one another up and down both sides of the street. I really came alive when I learned the Dewey Decimal System, but don’t hold it against Google!
October 26th, 2011 at 12:38 pm
Caffeinated Content
I am certainly not less fortunate.
How could I miss what didn’t exist.
I enjoy my computer but I still love books, music, movies and being with friends. All the things I enjoyed before the internet. I have a pretty big garden to take care of.
I find the internet a very useful tool, but you do have to dig if you really want to understand something because any nut in the fruitcake can post anything they want whether it’s useful information or just plain nonsense.
As for the anything else, I still don’t have a cell phone. My sons (in their 30’s) think that I should have one for safety and all that. Maybe one day I’ll get one. But for now I’m still enjoying my privacy. I can spend hours in my garden working or reading without interruption.
I remember being in a Walmart restroom one day and whoever was in the stall next to me was talking on her phone. She was arguing loudly with her husband or boyfriend. Anyway, thanks but no thanks. I’d say that’s a little too-connected.
Whatever happened to peace and quiet?
October 27th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
Oh there was a lot of things in my day…my day laid the foundation for To-Day. I long for those days. Much more good clean fun and things to do together. I don’t feel deprived of a dang thang.
October 29th, 2011 at 7:14 pm
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
No. We did not have a TV until I was a teenager, so I never watched much of that, still do not. I had to learn to use a computer for my job when I was in my 30s, but we played outside…baseball, kick-the-can, hide-and-seek, rode bicycles, skated, had picnics, played cowboys and Indians, and I dug up a lot of interesting things like arrowheads and a golden salt spoon out of the field where we lived. I even found a fossil with a fern in it. We ate watermelon which we put in tubs with ice all around it and went swimming in a creek where there is now a college. We also went fishing and up on the mountains and picked berries and apples to put away for the winter, had a garden in our yard and the field, canned everything for winter that we grew except for what we ate.
October 31st, 2011 at 2:55 am
Caffeinated Content
Oh, woe is me. I had to sit in a corner and stare at the wall because there was nothing to do, no activities, total boredom. Life was so terrible. All there was to do was go to the park, swing on the swings, hide in the bushes, play baseball, swim in the pool, run around with friends. How did I ever survive. Then I was forced to go to the movies, play monopoly, water color pictures, use my imagination. Of course I had to practice the violin and piano, memorize my catechism, read lots of books, go to the library, learn to spell, get good grades in school, graduate in the top 10 in my high school class, get a BA in political science in college. Yeah, I was really less fortunate without the internet. But guess what. I use the net, email, facebook, cell phone, video projector, flat screen TV, lots of other goodies, drive a nice little red Miata convertible, enjoy life, so if that’s unfortunate, so be it.
November 2nd, 2011 at 6:08 am
Caffeinated Content
there was no internet, no tv, radio often didn’t work, we made our own enjoyment and amusement, we were more loving and romantic back then, no i DO NOT regret or feel less fortunate by living in the 30s 40s 50s + + +. in fact i consider myself extremal fortunate having lived through those years. wouldn’t change it for anything
November 4th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
When I was growing up in the 50s you were lucky if you had crayons. I’m not complaining though, we went out of the house to talk to our friends, we knew everyone we spoke to. If we wanted to know something we read a book or asked our teachers.
November 6th, 2011 at 6:26 pm
Caffeinated Content
What do you mean your days. We are still alive, and I am using the internet, probably as well as you do. How old are you? There are going to be things, are probably are things now, that were not there when you were a tyke/
The information superhighway can be destructive or it can be constructive.
Times change for every generation, we older ones benefit from the same things the younger ones do, in the same generation.. It is simply the younger ones are so arrogant they cannot stand thinking they will get old. Is it the fear of older people knowing more than they do, or getting the job. We older ones are not smart, we just have been exposed repeatedly. LOL. Even if we knew it the first time around. I don’ t dislike all young people. Some are very mature, intelligent and accepting of older people as if we are still human.
I am amazed that it seems that young people think you get to be a certain age and everything shuts down. We continue to learn, grow, develop just like young people do, unless there is something physically or chemically wrong with our brains.
I still learn. I have learned amazingly in the past five years, new things, and come a long way in some things I did not get too far in before. I think older people are so battered by the arrogance, the prejudice of young people, it intimidates us. I am able to learn. I have a decreased stress tolerance due to repeated physical batterings, by strangers, threats, bullying and my very delicate tenous position in society…which could change for the worse at any given moment. In fact, I wait for the dreaded knock on the door, day and night. I am deadly serious, and worse, it is a true and valid fear. I am innocent.I live in poverty. After working so hard, trying to work, desperately a lot of times, most of my adult life, I cannot now, and they are trying to make me. I have
hardly anything left to show for these 63 years of hell on earth at times, the value of which would not pay a bankruptcy attorney, which I cannot find nor can I file (but I could put the fees of the attorney on a CREDIT card, which i do not have) nOR DID I have the bills I have before I was denied work and got sick. Isn;’t that funny. That is the creation of today’s society, youth.
I am too old to regain my losses and I am too down trodden to get over this again. No. I am not bipolar. P:eople have done horrible things to me for money when I try work.
I didn’t miss out on anything due to no internet. I had radio, then TV, then phone, electricity came in there some where. Not as old as all that, merely from a rural area , which was not wealthy. I didn’t lose anything.
I am not so sure I gained anything from internet, except instant, easy access to things which are not necessarily true always.
It is fun to do some things on here. However, I could probably do it through other avenues, it would take longer, be more work. There are these instant things like answers and chat rooms, etc. Emails vs snail mail.
Have you looked at the unemployment rate? Did you know computers are largely responsible for a lot of unemployment. Computers do the work of several people, one computer: This means three people are out, due to one computer. Maybe I would not have had a job if there had been computers, nor would have a lot of people in the offices in which I worked. Lucky or not?
November 9th, 2011 at 5:01 am
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
Absolutely not - in the first place, my parents would never have let us get glued to it, or possibly even use it.
Instead - I spent as much time as possible outside, where I learned to ride, shoot, climb trees, fish, play jump rope and hopscotch, and much more.
I have many happy memories I value more than I would have valued of time spent dinking around on the internet, and I especially treasure the memories of time I spent learning things from my father.
November 12th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
We knew far more about life, and the rest of the world,even though we had never seen places. We learn-ed a lot.I was born in 1929 when the WIRELESS was in its infancy,and by the time i was 12 years old i had made my first 3 valve version.The guy next door was a car fanatic, and he could strip an engine down when he was 14.We had lots of interests and none of them needed us to sit in front of a screen for ages.We got out and DID things. Thanks to the men of our age you have all the latest improvements,and when you are 80 you will wonder how you ever managed to cope without your A B or C item. that has just come into your life,then, you will know how we feel.
November 15th, 2011 at 12:13 am
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
No, I don’t feel less fortunate at all. I grew up getting the latest toys and electronics of my era. I wouldn’t change a thing, matter of fact, I miss the more Simple days. I remember getting a Record Player and a few Records for Xmas one year and I thought I had hit the Jackpot. But I guess my Prize would be a Pink Princes Telephone installed in my bedroom for my 13th Birthday. That was a Grand time in my life… So really, I think I am blessed to have grown up in the era that I did.I believe us kids back then appreciated things more than kids do today.
November 16th, 2011 at 9:23 pm
Caffeinated Content
Gosh no! I feel blessed to be aware that there
really are other ways to entertain yourself other
than with something you have to plug in!
I remember the commercial that showed the
person as just a head. No body.
It is just about to get that way now.
People don’t use their bodies anymore
because they don’t know how and
don’t think they have to!
November 18th, 2011 at 2:52 am
Caffeinated Content
excuse me ? which generation INVENTED computers ????
and who says there wasn’t anything else ???
no need to justify, the answers here speak for themselves . LOL.
November 18th, 2011 at 4:30 am
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
Do you know what the people in 50 years will be doing? Do you feel as if you’re missing out on whatever it will be?
November 18th, 2011 at 11:54 pm
Caffeinated Content for WordPress
no i do not. we always managed to find entertainment in one form or another. another thing, when a lot of us were younger we also had a lot of work to do. i survived before the internet and if it were to disappear i would still manage.
November 22nd, 2011 at 5:04 am
Caffeinated Content
No I don’t as we used to talk to each other not send e mails and silly pass on things .like the good luck fairy or whatever .
Then we never had all that fraud and B—–y Viruses that rob you of all your so I thought saved photos and word documents .
I do enjoy the internet though and love to just troll the net but when it comes to the problems it costs a small fortune to have someone come in to look at it and try to fix it.
I also like the fact I can talk use the web camera to someone in another country .for free thanks to the modern Technology .