50+ and miss the 70s/80s/90s?

I was feeling so nostalgic today. I really miss the era before smartphones and even before the Internet. I miss being young and feeling optimistic. We had computers but they didn't own us, track us, and try to hook us. The music seemed a lot better. And people actually interacted with each other. Not snapping selfies all the time and everything all about looks and celebrity.

I actually enjoyed high school. Here in Canada high school is grades 8-12. I was bullied in grade school but not much in high school and I had a best friend and always a group of "out crowd" friends. My best friend and I had paper routes we would do together and we both worked at Dairy Queen starting when we were 16. It was one of the "shacks" where the staff are inside and you just pass food and collect money through the windows - no customers inside. In the evenings the bosses weren't there so it was just a bunch of teenage girls and we had a lot of fun. We had some very strange characters including one guy who would always have a hot fudge sundae made with pralines and cream ice cream. We never charged him and he would pass a couple of joints through the window sometimes and I would be like WTF and the older girls would take them.

In high school and earlier we had so many adventures that would never happen today because kids don't go outdoors. I'm really glad I grew up in the 70s and 80s (graduated high school in 1986). We joined Sea Cadets for a while, rode our bikes all over the city, and I joined St. John Ambulance (crusader division) and in summers when I was 18-19 I worked with children at day camp and summer camp (residential camp). I also worked as a lifeguard and swimming teacher.

Of course the dark side was that I was living on eggshells at home and dealing with abuse. Honestly I was hardly ever home though between age 15 and 19. I'm so glad I grew up in a time when we could have minimal contact with parents.

In the 80s my favourite music was Talking Heads, Genesis/Peter Gabriel, The Police, Gowan, Robert Palmer, Eurythmics, George Michael, Prince, Queen, REM and more. Great songs to dance to without all the techno stuff. My favourite song of the 80s is Sledgehammer!

I didn't like school at all, and I do love technology. But I often miss the 80s. I seem to be able to push aside the things I didn't like about the era to become nostalgia for a time when things seemed so much less complicated. I miss visiting my grandmother in her small village, being able to sleep out on her back porch, and then spending the day riding all over the area with one of my closest friends on a tandem bike.

Actually high school and my teen years were quite good times for me. There is truth I learned that those were among the best times in life because I was granted more privileges and responsibilities in what I could do compared to not having to earn a living and worry about things coming along and being out on my own. I was weird enough in high school bullies tended to leave me alone and I have always had a love for the old TV, movies and music from the 70s and 80s during those times. It always surprises me how many movies my mom took me and my brother to see when we were kids growing up and radios always blaring.

I love to watch YouTube vids of early Genesis on stage. I mean you can listen to the records but watching Peter Gabriel putting on his masks or playing the flute is pretty awesome. Also when you watch these bands you often wonder just how many keyboards do these people need? What do they all do?

I'm glad I saw the change in technology, going from ZX Spectrum, to the Mega Drive (Genesis), to the PS1, you could say which one is best? But the whole point is being awe-struck by those jumps and changes. That's what's disappointing about current technology. ok people will say the PS5 is much more amazing than the PS4 but to me it's like going from the Mega Drive to the Mega CD (Snatcher was awesome, so I'm glad I did!) I'm hoping some new technology in the future will excite me like it did when I was younger but I don't hold out hope)

While I would NEVER opt to relive my life, I do miss aspects of the 70s and 80s. Obviously, the music is high on my list. But really, I miss being and individual, not a drone in the Borg Collective. I miss leaving the house without a cellphone or beeper. I miss the days when we knew what we knew about our friends and that was enough. After social media exposed the people I thought I knew my whole life, I found that I had to disconnect from most of them. We weren't meant to be this interconnected. It does more harm than good.

I miss the simpler times of the 70's and 80's. no cell phones. inexpensive cable tv. no hassles with computers. no school shootings. affordable cars. no energy and climate issues. there is so much to miss

I could talk hours about those amazing decades as a teen and 20something, especially the 70's. I wish for the precomputer days more than occasionally.

Best time for me was the 80’s. For me it was the freedom and lack of responsibility. I had moved away from home where I was ruled under my mums thumb but didn’t really have any responsibilities to worry about. I wonder if, rather than the era, it’s the age we miss, or that time of life? That time between moving away from home and having any real responsibilities other than ourselves. I think that is it for me anyway. I know I could never get something like that back. Family and kids and elderly parents and work and adult life in general have taken a firm grip and I’ll never be able to get that level of freedom back again.

As for no computers, you are probably right in many ways. Technology has made life too fast, expectations on our time and what can be achieved in a day is too high. Gone are the days where one day was dedicated a ‘washing day’. Now clothes are shoved into the washing machine as I run between three gazillion other jobs that I am multitasking. Today it is a luxury to allow the credits of a tv programme to run without hitting ‘skip’, or to watch the adverts without fast forwarding through them. For me, drying my hair with a hair drier, rather than allowing it to dry on its own, is a luxury. I simply don’t have time. Having the time, or the energy, to cook a proper meal rather than shove something into the oven for 25 mins while I do something else. Today, life is too fast and expectations on people too high. I find it crushing.

Growing up in England I had a completely different life but I can so relate to everything you write @Lady Wolfshead. I think it must have been a magical time because I read so many people saying they wish they could go back to the 80's. I had just left school and still living at home but my father was a little easier to deal with as he go older so I had very few worries. The music of the time was the backdrop of my life - mostly British artists and occasional few from the US or Canada and then I got into 'world music' too. It felt like the world was expanding and positive as if everything was just getting better and better and then somehow it didn't in the 90's. I wish I could go back and feel what it was like before computers and social media. Feel how my body just moved without me thinking about it! Feel how normal knees worked! It's wonderful to look back on memories of that time and I feel lucky to have experienced the 70's and 80's but it makes me sad if I think too much about it. I do love being able to reach out and communicate with people all over the world and I love social media too. I wonder what people born today will look back on, what will their lives be like. I fear for them but also feel they are so lucky to already have so much available to them. I was only thinking this week, how amazing it would be to have had the cameras we have today back in the 80's and see it all in HD!

At the age of 44 I can feel part of this wanting to go back to the 90s would be great the 90s were kind of like the 60s for my mum age group anything went there was a ton more freedom and ever since well 2001 the world has snapped back all those freedoms and now we have people getting made over the wording of jokes and trying to cancel something because they dont agree with it it was also the last time when there was no real major issues no war no bad economic stuff going on governments were not as in your life as much as they would be after 2001

also in the old days music was better it was not full of manufactured bands who need to win TV shows

I actually do quite enjoy the technology like so many. I do wish people were not so dependent on it like a lifeline that they can't live without. Let the internet go out for any length of time and they come unglued. I enjoy when mine works but if it stops for a bit I just read a book, play with my cat at least until she decides it has been enough play, play a little bit of guitar or spend time with carpentry or out of doors. Life isn't over because your PC doesn't work for a day or less or the phone goes on the fritz for a while.

I miss the '70s most (High school: class of '79). The '80s and '90s less so. Also like '50s-'70s music the most.

I’m a 90s baby and the 2000s and 2010s were the best for video games and animated tv comedy.

The 70’s as a teenager and young 20’s something had its magic. No cell phones or Google. Pac-Man was the rage. You could walk almost anywhere anytime and feel safe. I traveled to Europe for two months on $1500 and felt like a princess. I lived basically for free in Israel for two years, and worked for one of those years in Jerusalem at the hospital that was an unforgettable experience. I lived in India in an ashram for a year and learned things I had never been made aware of in the culture I had been raised in. Life was fun and curiosity and spontaneity drove the days even with work in the mix. People engaged everywhere with each other. Connection ease and broader accessibility to so much that doesn’t feel like it is available these days. A big name concert cost $5. You could eat really well on $5 a day. There was a kind of freedom of being that was special to the 60’s and 70’s . It was amazing.

The things that I miss most about previous decades would be the music and the simplicity of life… Having had 3 sisters who were older than me I was also exposed to music from the 50s and 60s so I enjoyed that too… Music from the 70s would probably be my favourite genre…
As @Livelife said travel was so much easier and much cheaper in the 80s and 90s … I know how lucky I was to have been able as much as I did…
My feeling is that there was less pressure to succeed back then as well, that as long as you were able to have food and shelter and not be suffering you could be considered as doing ok…
My feeling is that social media has changed our world completely… The possibility to disseminate false or misleading information so quickly and easily definitely scares me!
The only social media thing that I use are these forums and 3 others… I have never used Facebook etc… Even though they might be ok for some people I am not sure about how safe it is for kids growing up… I am glad that it wasn’t around when I was young…

I'm 37 and definitely miss the 90s and some of the early 2000s. Two nights ago my cousin stayed up to 5am listening to 90s music. It was a blast from the past.

There was a time when it was great to get new things. I know people now.... "I've got a new PC, can't be bothered setting it up", "I've got a new game, I'll get round to playing it eventually", "I've got a new phone, pretty much like my old phone". Getting something new used to be such an amazing experience like when I got my first color TV, those days are long gone, but I still try to appreciate what I've got.