What the 1990s Were Actually Like (And Why You’ll Never Get It Back)
Listen, children of the digital age, let me tell you about a time when human connection wasn’t reduced to algorithmic interactions and dopamine-triggered thumb spasms. Your generation thinks you invented anxiety, but we had to actually work for ours and somehow we were still happier than you are with your infinite entertainment and zero attention spans.
You missed the last era when life felt like an adventure by default, when your brain wasn’t hijacked by notification addiction disguised as communication tools. You missed a time when mystery was normal, when waiting was a skill instead of torture, when uncertainty felt like possibility instead of a technological failure.
What I’m about to show you isn’t nostalgia, it’s archaeology. These are the specific skills that died with the iPhone. The particular types of human connection that are now extinct. The exact experiences that made us more patient, more present, more genuinely connected to each other and to our own lives.
This will either make you nostalgic for a time you never lived through or convince you that we’ve accidentally created the most sophisticated torture device in human history and you’re all just walking around pretending it’s normal.