OK, I'll ask the obvious question

I'd say kids raised in the 70's/80's were far better off. Yeah, kids today are better connected electronically, but computers/phones/games etc. have taken over everything.

Having things limited back in the day actually helped us in other areas. Cartoons only on weekday afternoons/Saturdays with no other real option to watch? We studied or played outside.

No cell phones, with only one land line that couldn't be tied up? We met people face to face, wrote letters, or talked to them in school.

There were no such things as selfies, naked or otherwise, and the only time we showed someone else our body parts was when you got intimate. Computers/cellphones have slightly improved society, and greatly ruined it.

"Without management, there is only chaos."
"Can we try the chaos thing?"

I turned 16 in 1975. Super-duper rhetorical question, bro'! You know the answer!


It's inevitable: there will be a "counter-culture" movement...

A future youth will vilify today's ready and reckless "giving away" of one's privacy. (It's like post WWII's Ward & June Cleaver, who were no longer tolerated by the Baby Boomers. They took over Columbia and burned their draft cards and bras.) Solitude and anonymity will be celebrated and/or coveted. A faction of youth will condemn the thoughtless distribution of one's identity via social media/the web. They'll champion privacy. They'll promote "secret living." This is already being cultivated by the disappearing ability of Millennials to carry-on in face-to-face interactions.

And to be successfully anonymous will be like owning a Bentley. Comparatively few will have it and those who do, will smugly enjoy their ride. The majority will watch them with envy and wish they had their own "Bentleys," too.

Then again, like the "Occupiers," it just won't work. We're too deeply entrenched in this process of easy-sharing of privacy.

Why a revolt? Because youth is hard-wired for it. It's how change happens.

"Every Generation Needs a New Revolution." -- Thomas Jefferson.

Better off, for sure.

Today, kids sit there and text with all of their friends rather than going to visit them (I know they still visit, but not nearly as much). Kids are glued to the internet to converse, watch films, etc. They are glued to the TV, watching on demand films from Netflix or DirecTV. Can you see where I am going with this?

I was born in 1972, and, like you, I didn't have any of those things growing up. I had friends that I visited. A movie was something that was on during Saturday afternoons or Sunday evening. Studying meant going to the library. Playing/having fun meant going outside and building a fort, riding bikes, going for an adventure down the bank behind the house where the creek ran through. Riding our bikes three miles to Ames to get a new audio cassette that we had saved up for from mowing lawns for five dollars a pop, for a big lawn, and three dollars for a smaller one, and with a push mower, as well.

One thing that you and I developed during our childhoods because they were so different than today is learning how to interact with people, face to face.

I'm glad I grew up when I did. I was active, I learned through experience instead of texting about something, and one other MAJOR thing...I stayed in shape. I didn't gain a pound a week from sitting on my butt, texting whoever, playing whatever video game, watching movies and stupid, pointless reality shows, and spending too much time on IMDB. LMAO.

And do you remember when you had a book report due? You actually wrote it in handwriting. Do you know that many schools don't even teach cursive anymore? Times are changing, alright, and some things are definitely NOT for the better.


The plural of mouse is mice. The plural of goose is geese. Why is the plural of moose not meese?

of course your childhood was awsome man ! that is the real natural life ..
when everything become accessible (like porn ) .. real life became boring

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I guess nudity wasn't a big deal before cameras in mobile phones and the internet.
in early 90's I was 15 I played strip poker luckily noone had a camera to record it and noone walked around with a normal camera. So it was nearly forgotten the day after by all who played.

to day I guess it is impossible to do that without someone having a mobile camera.

Hm.I guess you cannot answer that question with a simple "yes" or "no". If you think of the situation of the people featured in the movie as an example, their real problem is always human - they are disconnected in the real world, and they seek human connections (and sometimes find it, although in a creepy way) in the virtual one. So if you get the internet out of the story, you would still see lonely people, just without the illusion of finding someone who really cares.

So, I would say it just depends. What would you say to someone who turned 15 in 1940. Was he better of just because he had no TV?

I turned 15 in 1959. We played outside on all the neighbor lawns til after dark, hide and seek and stuff. We rode our bikes all over. We got our first TV when I was nine, and I watched Howdy Doody.
My dad watched Gunsmoke all the time, and the Ed Sullivan show. I found TV pretty boring, especially after I went away to college and found all the same shows still on when I came home, so I quit watching it and became a hippie. I missed the 70s because I was farming and building a geodesic dome, and raising kids with no TV. Later on it was good for Sesame Street and Star Trek, and that's about it.
Now I don't watch TV any more, just occasional movies on my computer.