BuzzFeed just asked older adults what everyday inconvenience from the past would frustrate people today. And it really goes to show just how much technology has changed our lives.
Here are some of the best answers:
1. Waiting by the phone for a call . . . If you were expecting a call from someone special, you had to stay near the family phone all night and hope it eventually rang. Unless someone was using dial-up internet, then you’d be screwed.
2. Writing everything down by hand . . . Before smartphones, if you wanted to remember something, it had to be written down. Recipes, directions, everything!
3. Researching at the library . . . If you didn’t know the answer to something, you’d better find an encyclopedia.
4. Hunting down a pay phone . . . Need to call someone away from home? Better find a pay phone and make sure you had the right coins in your pocket.
5. Finding out about snow days . . . This was long before apps, or text alerts. Students had to listen to the radio or watch TV to see your school scroll by.
6. Sharing a party line . . . Did you know several houses used to be able to share the same phone line? And if someone was on the line, other families could pick up and listen freely. (I guess privacy was overrated back then.)
7. Using a manual typewriter . . . If you made one mistake on a school paper, it could mean retyping an entire page from scratch.
(You can check out the rest of the list here.)
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