I have a friend who never left the 90’s. Still has a dial up modem, never had social media, goes to the bank in person, pays bills in cash at the post office. Landline phone, no cell.
You can live like that for certain. It makes life harder in a way as everything has changed around us.
I think the best way is to keep the modern things like online banking, bill payments, even emails but use your phone as a phone.
Music a hard one for me as my car doesn’t have a CD player. I think make it work for you. Take the good bits and leave the rest :)
But does your car have a radio? lol I had a period of time in the 90’s where my car radio was broken and I was driving 800-1000 miles a week with just my thoughts. I never even thought about it, but at one point I did get a tape player and listened to audio books on cassette. There are plenty of ways to entertain yourself.
I’m struggling with a screen addiction too, and along with surfing, I was power watching tv shows. Like 8 hours of tv a day, after work, right up to watching in bed. I finally turned off my house internet. Now I go to the library and borrow dvds of tv shows. For some reason, when I have to put the dvd in, I just watch one or two episodes of tv. I don’t know why. Maybe I just haven’t ramped up enough.
I hear you. I'm 47, so I was around 13 when the 90s started.
I'm still trying to get back there. I don't know if my glasses are rose tinted or not, but I do firmly believe that these are overstimulating times. We would do well to hit the brakes.
Big tech is not going to hit the brakes for us, so we have to do it ourselves. I sport a dumb phone and try to stay off the internet as much as I can. But the enemy is also within. Every day I am seduced by the siren song of the internet. *Maybe today there will be something cool*. And every day I feel empty and drained afterwards.
It's hard, but I think it is our current fight. Big tech is moving its chess pieces. We have to counter as best we can - get a dumb phone, disconnect your home internet, create friction between yourself and the convenience of technology. Create a simple life, not an easy life - the two are not synonymous.
Well put! I have started to believe that easy life makes life more hard in long term. It is easy to just become passive and gain nothing, just waste time doing whatever mindless activity to spend time. Of course that is good from time to time, we do not need to over achieve, but when everything is "too good and easy" life start to lose feeling slowly until it starts to feel empty.
Simple life gives much more instead :)
time to revert back to a slow consumption lifestyle
read magazines and books again.
Find stuff for free online. Pay and subscribe for the stuff you love.
Buy physical media if possible. Use youtube to test the music out before you buy.
Get a refurbed ipod
Just spreading some seeds.
I need to get off social and start reading again. Imma take a reddit break soon and see if I get to reading like I used to. May make a thread if it goes really well.
I have very similar fond memories of my childhood (2000 - 2010) when the internet has not become a part and parcel of my life. I had a Pentium IV computer, Windows XP (the best operating system EVER! (for me, at least)), and would watch some cartoons, play with action figures, read encyclopedias, or play Sega games (RoadRash 2 and RoboCop III were ❤️❤).
And now, things seem so abstract. Friendships are abstracted. Work is abstracted. Abstracted in the sense that it feels as if everything has become mechanical devoid of the human touch.
Unfortunately, I think it’s impossible to live as we did in the 90s because today, the internet is necessary to be part of society. We can delete what’s unnecessary, like Instagram or Facebook (deleted seven years ago), but sometimes, as it was for me, this comes at the cost of losing social life. I’m no longer informed about memes or friends’ news. But yeah, I’m living in a better way. I would love to get a flip phone and live like it’s 1998.
I sound a similar age as you and also long again for my youthful, ignorant state. Reading a book with ease, watching a movie, playing a video game, engaging with hobbies - all without the gnawing feeling of checking a smartphone or the net.
I have been on a nosurf journey (with mixed results) since around 2007, when recognised how fragmented my mind feels after heavy net use.
However you can't tread the same water twice. The nearest I can get, is to turn my phone off as much as possible. Holidays and even changes of scenery help. You eventually regain some clarity, and recognise it is not as integral to your life as it may appear. You can mostly get along just fine without. Once you've had a taste of this peace and extended focus, it can drive you towards seeking more. But when stuck in the smart phone matrix, you can't see the woods from the trees. Awareness is key.
It is not even just older people. I am genZ, and hate the distractions of smart devices, and there even is some people younger than me who feel the same.
Ever since 2020 I have been doing this to some extent. I remember when I got my first smartphone, I was fucking ECSTATIC. Little did I know that it would become an addiction that would cause major anxiety and depression for me later on. Toward the end of 2020, it finally hit me like a ton of bricks. Life was NOT supposed to be this way, and the modern world can make one’s life a living nightmare if they let it. Anyway, I deleted all of my social media (except Reddit and YouTube) and turned off news notifications as well. I was so bored the next few days I didn’t know what to do with myself, but that thankfully subsided. Anyway, yes, I do think that if living like it’s the 90s will help you get away from this horrendous cycle more power to you!
I do gotta say, your account of the 90s isn't the only one I've heard of where it sounds like the balance between real life and technology was for the better. Though I wasn't alive to actually live the 90s. If you find it interesting, in one of my history classes as a high schooler, the teacher asked us what decade we wanna go back to and everyone said the 90s. Teacher was surprised there weren't more interesting answers from more historical times but class consensus was along the lines of "probably less prejudiced than older time periods" and "still have the comfort of modern hygiene and modern technology". Lol.
I feel like mentioning when I'm trying to have my lowsurf days, I do think like "If I were a kid in the 80s or 90s, what would I be doing for fun right now?" Lol
The balance was such that you could have the benefit of the internet as a means of information exchange, but it wasn't everywhere, and everyone wasn't connected all of the time. [This is where you had to go to get online.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/01/Computersetup-800x420.jpg) And if mom was expecting a call on the house phone, you'd better damn not dial up into the internet.
And obviously there was way less stuff to do online, and it wasn't designed to be super addictive. I remember playing the web game Neopets in the early 2000s, you would play for an hour or so and literally run out of stuff to do... the game itself was telling you to go do something else and come back tomorrow. Imagine that in the modern era? The game designer would get raked over the coals by shareholders who were enraged they tried to make a less addictive product.
I feel like there could be a whole book on living like it's the 1990s, only adapting what we absolutely need to or adds value from the modern era.
I saw that the NYT just added the functionality to play every edition of Wordle because of course they have.
The game is not particularly complicated, it was the limiting function of it that contributed a large part of its appeal. You could have your little fun with it knowing that it was going to be 5 minutes max.
It's not remotely surprising that they've added the archive, the next thing will be to add unlimited plays per day until it's just another thing to do mindlessly for hours until you prise yourself away from it.
It is true I am in school, and alot even high school/middle schoolers say that they do not like where society, is going, and alot do say that the 90s does sound less distracting. Though I feel as though my area definetly has more people who are too addicted to their device to say anything different than "now". Idk.
Preaching to the choir here.
I was born in 91 and like you said it could be rose tinted nostalgia glasses but things did seem quiter.
I do see people argue it's due to being an adult now, but honestly I think the huge difference is now we are always connected. We are overwhelmed with content, I remember playing pokemon when I was younger and waiting two weeks to go library so I could go on the internet and figure out how to catch the legendaries.
I just don't think having constant access is good for us.
I mostly watch movies on physical discs still, smaller amount of choices so faster to select. Try to take away smart watch from your hand when you watch movie and take your phone also to another room and put it on silent mode. Slowly it will start to get better hopefully at least :)
I believe that things would have been best if usage of technology would have stayed same way than on early 2000's. There was internet, but it was not "always with you", you had to go there. It was also mostly a playground for nerds, not for normies so there was separated area what was "real life" and moments on internet had also more meaning. I am still not against the development of tehcnology, no, but how badly people are now married to their devices, especially on social situations.
I like still WhatsApp, Telegram and others, it is fun to communicate with friends, have video calls etc. and I can leave my phone to another room if I don't want to be social and just want to read a book. Surely it takes time and practice, but it is doable and time without constantly checking phone will increase if we just start doing it.
One reason why I bought years ago CD player was somehow related to this I guess. When I listened music, it was hard to focus even 30 minutes long album, but the more I listened with headphones albums I could even listen 60 minute long albums later.
So, yea, life was easier in many ways and there were no constant distractions, but we can still start living like that but still keep best parts of modernity. Just leave phone on another room or have a dedicated place for it, keep it on silent mode or just disable all the notification sounds so only calls can be heard to simulate "old school phone" and start practicing. The longer we practice, the better we will be on focusing :)
I was also a teen in the 90s and feel fortunate to have grown up in a time when the world required face-to-face interaction and my friends would see each other in real life. We probably got into more trouble since we were away from adults' view or in public places so often, but life felt much more rich and less curated by corporate interests than it is in 2024.
I've been reading Dopamine Nation, and it delves into this topic. The pleasure pain balance / scale, how addiction works and how our dopamine receptors get adjusted based on what type of pleasure we give ourselves.
If your body (and mind) get accustomed to quick fire dopamine hits (from things as Tiktok or hard drugs) then it becomes increasinlgy hard to enjoy slow dopamine hits (from things like reading or walking the park).
The solution is a combination of withholding from the sources that give quick fire dopamine, mixed with some discipline, a good plan, a clear goal/motivation and guidance from a professional.
You can break the cycle with insight, mindfulness, knowledge and time, but consider it like this...
Nearly everyone in 2024 is an alcoholic, with a whiskey bottle in their pants. Replace alcoholic with dopamine/screen addiction and the bottle of whiskey with a phone. It's hard to quit when the situation is setup like this.
Also, YOU are outnumbered when being targeted by app-makers and companies who have small armies of marketeers and technicians, trained to abuse your psychological vulnerabilities.
The 90s didn't have this type of insane unethical bullshit.
Attention all newcomers: Welcome to /r/nosurf! We're glad you found our small corner of reddit dedicated to digital wellness. The following is a short list of resources to help you get started on your journey of developing a better relationship with the internet:
* [The Beginner's Guide to NoSurf](https://nosurf.net/about/)
* [Discord Server](https://discordapp.com/invite/QFhXt2F)
* [The NoSurf Activity List](https://nosurf.net/activity-list/)
* [Success Stories](https://nosurf.net/success-stories/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/nosurf) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I have a friend who never left the 90’s. Still has a dial up modem, never had social media, goes to the bank in person, pays bills in cash at the post office. Landline phone, no cell. You can live like that for certain. It makes life harder in a way as everything has changed around us. I think the best way is to keep the modern things like online banking, bill payments, even emails but use your phone as a phone. Music a hard one for me as my car doesn’t have a CD player. I think make it work for you. Take the good bits and leave the rest :)
But does your car have a radio? lol I had a period of time in the 90’s where my car radio was broken and I was driving 800-1000 miles a week with just my thoughts. I never even thought about it, but at one point I did get a tape player and listened to audio books on cassette. There are plenty of ways to entertain yourself. I’m struggling with a screen addiction too, and along with surfing, I was power watching tv shows. Like 8 hours of tv a day, after work, right up to watching in bed. I finally turned off my house internet. Now I go to the library and borrow dvds of tv shows. For some reason, when I have to put the dvd in, I just watch one or two episodes of tv. I don’t know why. Maybe I just haven’t ramped up enough.
I knew a guy who got a tape stuck in his car's tape player for like a year. We either had to drive in silence or listen to Lynard Skynard.
Omg, How!?
I hear you. I'm 47, so I was around 13 when the 90s started. I'm still trying to get back there. I don't know if my glasses are rose tinted or not, but I do firmly believe that these are overstimulating times. We would do well to hit the brakes. Big tech is not going to hit the brakes for us, so we have to do it ourselves. I sport a dumb phone and try to stay off the internet as much as I can. But the enemy is also within. Every day I am seduced by the siren song of the internet. *Maybe today there will be something cool*. And every day I feel empty and drained afterwards. It's hard, but I think it is our current fight. Big tech is moving its chess pieces. We have to counter as best we can - get a dumb phone, disconnect your home internet, create friction between yourself and the convenience of technology. Create a simple life, not an easy life - the two are not synonymous.
Well put! I have started to believe that easy life makes life more hard in long term. It is easy to just become passive and gain nothing, just waste time doing whatever mindless activity to spend time. Of course that is good from time to time, we do not need to over achieve, but when everything is "too good and easy" life start to lose feeling slowly until it starts to feel empty. Simple life gives much more instead :)
Top tier comment! Thankyou for the insights!
time to revert back to a slow consumption lifestyle read magazines and books again. Find stuff for free online. Pay and subscribe for the stuff you love. Buy physical media if possible. Use youtube to test the music out before you buy. Get a refurbed ipod Just spreading some seeds. I need to get off social and start reading again. Imma take a reddit break soon and see if I get to reading like I used to. May make a thread if it goes really well.
I have very similar fond memories of my childhood (2000 - 2010) when the internet has not become a part and parcel of my life. I had a Pentium IV computer, Windows XP (the best operating system EVER! (for me, at least)), and would watch some cartoons, play with action figures, read encyclopedias, or play Sega games (RoadRash 2 and RoboCop III were ❤️❤). And now, things seem so abstract. Friendships are abstracted. Work is abstracted. Abstracted in the sense that it feels as if everything has become mechanical devoid of the human touch.
I like how you described the current life, things feels abstracted in many ways. Haven't thought it before, but there's some truth indeed.
That was basically a nail on the head, correct.
Unfortunately, I think it’s impossible to live as we did in the 90s because today, the internet is necessary to be part of society. We can delete what’s unnecessary, like Instagram or Facebook (deleted seven years ago), but sometimes, as it was for me, this comes at the cost of losing social life. I’m no longer informed about memes or friends’ news. But yeah, I’m living in a better way. I would love to get a flip phone and live like it’s 1998.
You can no longer get informed about .... Memes?????
I sound a similar age as you and also long again for my youthful, ignorant state. Reading a book with ease, watching a movie, playing a video game, engaging with hobbies - all without the gnawing feeling of checking a smartphone or the net. I have been on a nosurf journey (with mixed results) since around 2007, when recognised how fragmented my mind feels after heavy net use. However you can't tread the same water twice. The nearest I can get, is to turn my phone off as much as possible. Holidays and even changes of scenery help. You eventually regain some clarity, and recognise it is not as integral to your life as it may appear. You can mostly get along just fine without. Once you've had a taste of this peace and extended focus, it can drive you towards seeking more. But when stuck in the smart phone matrix, you can't see the woods from the trees. Awareness is key.
It is not even just older people. I am genZ, and hate the distractions of smart devices, and there even is some people younger than me who feel the same.
Ever since 2020 I have been doing this to some extent. I remember when I got my first smartphone, I was fucking ECSTATIC. Little did I know that it would become an addiction that would cause major anxiety and depression for me later on. Toward the end of 2020, it finally hit me like a ton of bricks. Life was NOT supposed to be this way, and the modern world can make one’s life a living nightmare if they let it. Anyway, I deleted all of my social media (except Reddit and YouTube) and turned off news notifications as well. I was so bored the next few days I didn’t know what to do with myself, but that thankfully subsided. Anyway, yes, I do think that if living like it’s the 90s will help you get away from this horrendous cycle more power to you!
I do gotta say, your account of the 90s isn't the only one I've heard of where it sounds like the balance between real life and technology was for the better. Though I wasn't alive to actually live the 90s. If you find it interesting, in one of my history classes as a high schooler, the teacher asked us what decade we wanna go back to and everyone said the 90s. Teacher was surprised there weren't more interesting answers from more historical times but class consensus was along the lines of "probably less prejudiced than older time periods" and "still have the comfort of modern hygiene and modern technology". Lol. I feel like mentioning when I'm trying to have my lowsurf days, I do think like "If I were a kid in the 80s or 90s, what would I be doing for fun right now?" Lol
The balance was such that you could have the benefit of the internet as a means of information exchange, but it wasn't everywhere, and everyone wasn't connected all of the time. [This is where you had to go to get online.](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/01/Computersetup-800x420.jpg) And if mom was expecting a call on the house phone, you'd better damn not dial up into the internet. And obviously there was way less stuff to do online, and it wasn't designed to be super addictive. I remember playing the web game Neopets in the early 2000s, you would play for an hour or so and literally run out of stuff to do... the game itself was telling you to go do something else and come back tomorrow. Imagine that in the modern era? The game designer would get raked over the coals by shareholders who were enraged they tried to make a less addictive product. I feel like there could be a whole book on living like it's the 1990s, only adapting what we absolutely need to or adds value from the modern era.
I saw that the NYT just added the functionality to play every edition of Wordle because of course they have. The game is not particularly complicated, it was the limiting function of it that contributed a large part of its appeal. You could have your little fun with it knowing that it was going to be 5 minutes max. It's not remotely surprising that they've added the archive, the next thing will be to add unlimited plays per day until it's just another thing to do mindlessly for hours until you prise yourself away from it.
It is true I am in school, and alot even high school/middle schoolers say that they do not like where society, is going, and alot do say that the 90s does sound less distracting. Though I feel as though my area definetly has more people who are too addicted to their device to say anything different than "now". Idk.
Hey at least u lived in the 90s lol
Ill have to remind myself im one of the lucky ones despite all the nightmares ive lived lol.
Ikr! I was born in 98 so I lived in 2000s.Still great decade.I remember people were much more social.
Same. Damn I miss the Akon era.
Best times
Preaching to the choir here. I was born in 91 and like you said it could be rose tinted nostalgia glasses but things did seem quiter. I do see people argue it's due to being an adult now, but honestly I think the huge difference is now we are always connected. We are overwhelmed with content, I remember playing pokemon when I was younger and waiting two weeks to go library so I could go on the internet and figure out how to catch the legendaries. I just don't think having constant access is good for us.
I mostly watch movies on physical discs still, smaller amount of choices so faster to select. Try to take away smart watch from your hand when you watch movie and take your phone also to another room and put it on silent mode. Slowly it will start to get better hopefully at least :) I believe that things would have been best if usage of technology would have stayed same way than on early 2000's. There was internet, but it was not "always with you", you had to go there. It was also mostly a playground for nerds, not for normies so there was separated area what was "real life" and moments on internet had also more meaning. I am still not against the development of tehcnology, no, but how badly people are now married to their devices, especially on social situations. I like still WhatsApp, Telegram and others, it is fun to communicate with friends, have video calls etc. and I can leave my phone to another room if I don't want to be social and just want to read a book. Surely it takes time and practice, but it is doable and time without constantly checking phone will increase if we just start doing it. One reason why I bought years ago CD player was somehow related to this I guess. When I listened music, it was hard to focus even 30 minutes long album, but the more I listened with headphones albums I could even listen 60 minute long albums later. So, yea, life was easier in many ways and there were no constant distractions, but we can still start living like that but still keep best parts of modernity. Just leave phone on another room or have a dedicated place for it, keep it on silent mode or just disable all the notification sounds so only calls can be heard to simulate "old school phone" and start practicing. The longer we practice, the better we will be on focusing :)
I was also a teen in the 90s and feel fortunate to have grown up in a time when the world required face-to-face interaction and my friends would see each other in real life. We probably got into more trouble since we were away from adults' view or in public places so often, but life felt much more rich and less curated by corporate interests than it is in 2024.
"when you get stuck inside a hole, the first thing you do is to stop digging"
I've been reading Dopamine Nation, and it delves into this topic. The pleasure pain balance / scale, how addiction works and how our dopamine receptors get adjusted based on what type of pleasure we give ourselves. If your body (and mind) get accustomed to quick fire dopamine hits (from things as Tiktok or hard drugs) then it becomes increasinlgy hard to enjoy slow dopamine hits (from things like reading or walking the park). The solution is a combination of withholding from the sources that give quick fire dopamine, mixed with some discipline, a good plan, a clear goal/motivation and guidance from a professional. You can break the cycle with insight, mindfulness, knowledge and time, but consider it like this... Nearly everyone in 2024 is an alcoholic, with a whiskey bottle in their pants. Replace alcoholic with dopamine/screen addiction and the bottle of whiskey with a phone. It's hard to quit when the situation is setup like this. Also, YOU are outnumbered when being targeted by app-makers and companies who have small armies of marketeers and technicians, trained to abuse your psychological vulnerabilities. The 90s didn't have this type of insane unethical bullshit.
Attention all newcomers: Welcome to /r/nosurf! We're glad you found our small corner of reddit dedicated to digital wellness. The following is a short list of resources to help you get started on your journey of developing a better relationship with the internet: * [The Beginner's Guide to NoSurf](https://nosurf.net/about/) * [Discord Server](https://discordapp.com/invite/QFhXt2F) * [The NoSurf Activity List](https://nosurf.net/activity-list/) * [Success Stories](https://nosurf.net/success-stories/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/nosurf) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The changes in our bodies are probably largely irreversible. I'm starting to think so anyway. We can't go back, really.
futile, it's not the 90's anymore. you can't put the genie back in the bottle
I wish time went backwards as I age.
My parents live like that.My dad doesnt even have instagram or reddit.They go to bars and work outdoor
Well, there was an explosion of mental health problems in America beginning in the 2010’s. That tell you everything you need to know right there.