The 19th century brought people the industrial revolution and a new way of life. The railways, for example, completely transformed travel and those born towards the end of the Napoleonic wars (in another kind of baby boom) grew up to be much more reform-minded.
But these changes were much harder for the older generation. However, they just kept coming.
There's an obvious parallel with today: technology is reshaping the world, forcing us to constantly keep up, adapt, and leave the past for the history books.
Interested in the gaps formed by the latest developments, Redditor u/Bagolyvagymi asked this question: "What's something that newer generations will never understand?" And users flooded the post with answers. As of this article, it has 4.9K comments. Here are some of the most upvoted ones.
#1
Being able to be an idiot in your formative years and not worry about it being filmed and/or put on the internet forever
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#3
Slamming down the receiver on a landline telephone. Pushing the red button is not nearly as satisfying.
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#5
Saturday morning cartoons. I miss sitting in front of the TV and eating a bowl of cereal while Tale Spin, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or whatever Saturday morning cartoon series played. Then getting on my bike once they ended around 10 a.m. and riding over to my friend's house to play till sunset.
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#6
Taking pictures and then waiting for them to be developed to see if they turned out okay.
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#7
MTV played music videos, had music discussion shows, and had news about music 24 hours a day at one point.
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#8
Having to buy the entire album to get one song you liked, or else wait for it to come on the radio and record it. Missing any part of the song was unacceptable, and you had to wait until it was played again.
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#9
Parents not knowing where their kids are and trusting them not to get into trouble.
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#11
Not being able to watch whatever you wanted whenever you wanted. We actually had to look up the shows schedule in a TV guide and be available when it came on.
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#12
Hows about not knowing who was calling... was it your crush? your grandma? a telemarketer??? It's like a game show every time the phone rings
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#13
Having to rewind the tape before returning it to the video store or else incurring a fee.
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#14
How to use the card catalog in the library — the ones with the cards in the drawers.
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#18
Circling pictures of toys in the Sears catalog as a Christmas list. My brother and my cousin would do this every year at my grandma's house. We also put our initials so our parents knew who wanted what toy.
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#19
Meeting up with a friend at the movies and having no way to communicate once you’ve left the house. Your friend doesn’t show. Is he coming? Should I continue to wait and stand at the precise spot we agreed on? Has he died? Did he forget? I’ll call home using a pay phone and hope my mom is there to tell me whether he left a message on the answering machine.
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