Science fiction dystopias being fictional and set in the “far future”.

Learning stuff from books post full time education. It used to be if you wanted to learn about stuff once you left education you would have to read a book, so picking up a new programming language would be either from courses (assuming work is paying), books (like the O’Reilly ones), and self study.

It required more application from the learner than the internet has enabled as instead of having to read an entire book or at least the relevant chapter, you could just read a few stack overflow questions that were vaguely similar to what you needed to know, then copy and paste the bits that you thought would fit.

AI has made that even quicker, and increased the chance of a wrong or misleading answer, and that assumes you are asking it to explain concepts rather than just getting it to write the code for you and hoping it works.

Its reduced the barrier for entry, but is it actually maintaining output quality as understanding of the topic is almost always not the same.

I got my first (non-smart) cell phone at 11, first Android smartphone at 15…

My answer to this is: not really anything? Having a cell phone and a smartphone has made my life much easier, more fun and less boring, I would not want to go back to a world without it. I (kinda) do want to go back to (approximately) the state of the Internet at the time, but would still want to be able to access it from a mobile device!

I remember during the time when I already had a Nintendo DS but the first iPhone hadn’t been announced yet, I would occasionally be bored at school and fantasize about how awesome it would be if my Nintendo DS could connect to the Internet anywhere I went. A few years later I got almost exactly that (looked a bit different from how I imagined though). :D

When I was a kid, before we had internet connection, I bought my own copy of Visual Basic and spent evenings coding all sorts of stuff.

These days trying to find consentration to get in the flow is way harder

Having face to face conversations with my friends after playing on the streets. Getting bored because there was nothing to do or to watch on TV. Time used to pass real slowly back then. I miss that.

Subcultures. These days, it’s just an aesthetic choice.

When the phone rang at home, in our childhood, my sister and I would excitedly race to answer it. Now when my cellphone rings I get an angsty feelings of dread and only look at it 5 minutes after it stops making noise. I also discovered that Nellie Kostychuk (made up name) was caught drunk in the barn during milking time thanks to the good old party line!

Getting a phone call from a friend, someone else in the house would usually get to the phone first, and you’d pick up another phone on the same line in a diff room, or calling someone you’d usually get their parents first. My step dad had a rough demeanor and would scare my and my siblings friends barking “yeah” at them when he answered we thought was pretty funny because once you knew him he was usually pretty kind & generous and loved cracking dad jokes.

You had to organize to meet a place and time. It wasnt just spur of the moment to moment decisions with easy communication.

It meant you actually had to plan and going places was a bit more like a quest and you had to consider other people into your plans.

I miss getting on the computer and AIM and chatting with friends.

• We all used the same software
• Status messages and profile pics
• Not on a phone - no expectation or distraction of being always available.

I miss phone screening. I wish I could just let all calls go to my answering machine and if the caller is leaving a legit message about something I could pick up, or if the caller was a telemarketer or someone I didn’t want to talk to, let them think I wasn’t home. Now, if someone calls and I don’t pick up, I have to explain that the phone was in another room and I didn’t hear it even though everyone knows I’m on Lemmy 24/7.

Not needing an account to do everything.

You paid at the door, you enjoyed your bowling/concert/etc, you didn’t get adverts for the rest of your life.

My paternal grandparents. Best adults in my life, loved them dearly, and I still didn’t appreciate them as much as I should have.

A lack of cameras everywhere. Plenty of dumb things that happened in my childhood now only live in my memory (and maybe those who were there). There’s no video proof of a dumb thing I said or did. I was free to make mistakes.

Greater intentionality in mundane things. Wanted to go somewhere? Mark it on the map. Photos? You only have so much film left. Trying to remember a phone number, address, passcode, note? 9 times out of 10, you’d write it down and carry it with you.

Smartphones are a technological miracle but we lost a lot of intention through the convenience, which has pros and cons.