Pre- mobiles and internet time, question for those who knew it

[marinyork]

Part of what I do involves dealing with a division of the London Stock Exchange. They correspond by fax....FFS

I have to use a fax machine everyday unfortunately. There is talk (and panic) of decommissioning them.

 

[hopless500]

I'd have liked the internet and current technology when I was a kid. It would have made a big difference. I love that wanting to know about something is sortable within a few minutes rather than limited to a small amount of information contained in an encyclopaedia in the house or a little more information if you spent time in a library. I'd not have lost touch with so many people either.
If I don't want to answer a call, text or email, I don't.

 

[MarkF]

Feel sad for my kids, 15, 18, & 23. Nothing beats face to face interaction and kids today have far less of it, despite having many more "friends". They don't have to make any effort.........I am not a luddite but for making new friends and making relationships, it was way better pre internet/mobile phones because you had to use your imagination and put in effort.

Plus you can't argue about whether somebody is dead or not.

 

[User32269]

I get fed up with constant texts on the mobile and would happily turn it off for days at a time. But, if one of the kids took ill or had an accident, I would feel so guilty that I couldn't be reached due to my anti social tendencies. So it gets left on.
I don't use any social media apart from cc. I honestly hate Facebook and Twitter. But, I registered on Facebook a few years ago and found someone very special who had become estranged. I left as soon as we found each other, but it was nigh on impossible to have found them without the technology.
If you use it to improve your life and work, it can only be a good thing. Far too many people imo are slaves to it. I probably only think this as I never grew up with it and am just a miserable old fart.
Having so much info instantly available is amazing, the only thing I really miss are fanzines etc. There was something magical about someone taking the time to photocopy and mash together something that you were really interested in. You felt like part of a real sub culture. Not quite the same as a million results on Google!

 

[slowmotion]

When I left school at eighteen, I set off alone on the overland trail to Nepal, hitching and using local buses and trains. I was away for four or five months, I forget which. My family received four postcards while I was away.. Years later, my mother confessed that she found the first three weeks of postal silence a bit difficult.

Edit: I took a grand total of 36 Kodachrome slide photos on the whole trip. Hosing your friends down with the tedious small details of your life had yet to become fashionable.


Oh dear... I seem to be doing it...

 

[tyred]

[QUOTE 4656961, member: 259"]They're dead useful if you just need to send a few pages or images with scribbles on and not everyone has photoshop and a touchpad - or even a PC.[/QUOTE]

After 12+ years working telecoms tech support I detest fax machines. They cause more problems than all other telephony devices put together.

 

[snorri]

Looking back, it would have been good to have had a mobile 'phone the day I and two others went beachcombing and were benighted in a cave and had to wait for a combination of daylight and suitable tide before scrambling back up a cliff to where the vehicle had been left.
A mobile would have saved family distress and a lifeboat coming out, and police being involved due to one of the three being the son of a police inspector.

 

[mjr]

I'd go back to the 70's at the drop of a hat. For the cycling anyway. And the pop music. But not the strikes and the wallpaper.

And the cycling drugs, presumably?

 

[mjr]

I'd have liked the internet and current technology when I was a kid. It would have made a big difference.

To me too. I suspect I'd either still be imprisoned for computer misuse (or being water boarded by the orange man if I'd targetted the USA) or very very rich.

 

[Saluki]

I miss not having a mobile with me all the time. Hubster is on the transplant list so I have to keep my phone on and with me. Before he was on the list I would leave my phone off a lot.
I don't worry about being out of contact with people (except for the transplant bods), I do have a FB account but post very little on my page but take part in a couple of groups. I have days where I don't bother with emails and it's nice.
When I had a proper job and my works texted me while I was on holiday, I just ignored it. I was 300 miles from work so couldn't do anything. They were cross with me when I got back but I said that they had texted me in my own time so I had no obligation to reply. I was not on call so they could poke off.
I could happily live in the 70s and 80s again but would chose a better haircut.

 

[KneesUp]

I think social arrangements were much simpler pre-mobiles. My Friday night as a sixth former would involve going to the pub where sixth formers went and inevitably meeting some people I knew from a rotating cast. It's what we all did/ I miss the simplicity of those days, but a lot of the simplicity I expect came from being 18 and being able to go to the pub on Friday night knowing I had nothing important to get up for in the morning.

 

[SteCenturion]

We used to send a 'bluey' home instead of 'face time' or What's App ...

 

[classic33]

We had a phone as my Dad needed it for his work. Most of our neighbours didn't have one and we often took messages for them and had a constant stream of people wanting to use the phone and leaving 20p to pay for it. Nowadays I communicate with people all over the world but don't generally be talking to neighbours!

The good old days of having a barman telling you you were wanted on the phone as it wasn't unusual to phone around anywhere where someone might be if you needed to speak to them.

I remember a small time second car dealer who conducted all his business from the phone box outside his front door - leaving the sitting room window open so he could hear it ringing when he advertised cars in the local paper and dashing out to answer it. I actually remember "for sale" adds in papers with no phone number, just a name and an address as the seller had no phone.

I actually miss phone boxes. In a world of everyone constantly being on the phone and shouting an trying to be heard above the background noise I think it was nice to go into a phone box and shut the door and have peace and privacy to carry out your call.

Which colour scheme?

 

[tyred]

A long established hostel I frequent has a huge box of postcards which simply say "I have arrived safe and well" (or something similar) in several languages written on them sitting in the reception area. A relic to pre-facebook era I guess!

 

[tyred]

Which colour scheme?
View attachment 335201

The white and green in the 3rd picture from the left is the scheme I remember in the 80s but these new fangled Telecom Eireann boxes were already taking over from the old P&T ones.