We bet reading this will take you down memory lane and you’ll remember all the times you played hide and seek or marco polo with your friends after school. Read on. 

1. Having the freedom to do really stupid shit without having it plastered all over social media.

– shinobi500

2. Yeah. I am so thankful I went to college before camera phones were a thing.

– TeamBombSquad

3. We were one of the last generations to be able to grow up with some freedom from our every day lives being posted on and easily accessible on social media. We had freedom to run around unaccompanied. Still had some freedom from friends, family, and employers being able to reach you whenever and wherever.

– justalittleparanoia

4. Being able to fuck up and learn from your mistakes instead of being “cancelled” for an opinion you had 12 years ago.

– rainbowgoose88

5. Back in the day if someone wanted to talk to you they had to run the risk of your parents answering and asking to speak to you. I had one friend who’s dad would always correct us: Us: “Can I speak to X?” Him: “I don’t know, can you?” Us: Eyeroll, “May I speak with X, please?”

– Golden_standard

6. I remember being in elementary school when the internet really started being a thing. We all used to go to the library in our school so they could teach us how to use it.

– Hatchytt

7. I miss it so much. Now everyone is so fixated on their phones or TV. I just want to talk.

– savantalicious

8. Toys in general. Action figures were amazing back then. I am yet to see an action figure that can surpass the size and quality of Street Sharks.

– TurtleTucker

9. Renting a movie at a video store. It was a whole process because even if you had a movie or movies in mind, there was a chance all the copies were rented and you had to find something else. It was an adventure though combing through the aisles and trying to find the perfect one to fit the mood of the night. And if it ended up sucking, you were still stuck with it because it’s not like now where you can just start streaming something else if you’re not digging what you picked out.

– -eDgAR

10. Saturday morning cartoons. Disney afternoon cartoons. 

– burritodominator

11. I ordered cassettes because I was too poor to have a CD player. I listened to the same tapes about a thousand times on my Walkman, like Aerosmith’s greatest hits. I ordered CDs once by accident and couldn’t do anything with them, haha. Even when I got a CD player I still listened to tapes because I had so many. Plus, I had a ton of mix tapes that my friends gave me.

– iwouldratherhavemy

12. Having technology evolve while we grew up. We went from records and tapes, to boomboxes, to portable CD players, to MP3 players, to having access to digital music wherever we want. We went from landlines to portable phones, to flip phones, to cell phones and now to androids/iPhones which are essentially mini computers. Computers went from a luxury novelty item, to a household staple, to something everyone has one or more of; with an internet that went from an obscure niche interest, to widening up just enough to give curious teenagers a taste of building their presence online, (hello, Geocities!) to an inescapable fact of life.

– emperorsteele

13. Mix tapes/CDs. There was an art to making them and receiving one was pure excitement because you had no idea what to expect until the next track started playing.

– -eDgAR-

14. Just going outside and playing with friends until it got dark.

– BostonDrivingIsWorse

15. MTV actually played music.

– el_gregorio

16. Phone battery that lasted 3 days.

– VodkaMargarine

My personal take? Listening to the radio and making my own mix-tapes by pressing record and pause for every great song that came on.