Someone Asks Older People “What Is Something Today’s Youth Would Never Understand” And 35 People Deliver
There's a term called the generation gap and it refers to the differences in experiences, opinions, habits, and behavior that separate age groups.
To learn more about this phenomenon, Reddit user MatsGry decided to look at it from another perspective. One that is often neglected and ridiculed on the internet. Baby boomers. So they made a post on the platform, asking the elders: "What's something today's youth would never understand?"
People immediately started sending in their replies, listing all the things that millennials and zoomers — in their opinion — can't wrap their minds around. Of course, some of them are up for debate, but that made the comment section even more interesting.
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History Channel, Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, and a bunch of other cable networks that are now dedicated to absolutely bottom-tier garbage reality TV shows used to be amazing nonstop documentary TV.
People could not always get a hold of you and it was a good thing.
No work calls at ungodly hours because you were expected to sleep with your phone on the pillow.
Needing to do a report on a topic. No internet. No encyclopedia on CD. Going to the actual library to find someone in your class already grabbed the one book on the subject.
Again, Encarta95 was only a thing from about 1993 onwards. Gen X definitely had to do reports from an actual library. Older Millennial's may have had to do the same (born in 1980, doing reports at age 11 - yup, well before the Encarta CDs).
As if everyone born in 1980 had access to a computer at age 11 ...
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I was born in mid-80s, and it was like that for me throughout my entire B.A. and M.A., but often the case in secondary school and high-school too. Info available on the Internet was pretty limited back then and insufficient to write a good paper...
And having to check the publication date to make sure it was the most up to date information.
Ugh, I remember having to do a report on Renaissance art and had to include a slide show. Oh so much fun taking pictures of artwork from a book then getting slides made. So much hassle.
Yes, and using the Dewey Decimal System... what fun! Don't forget, using the set(s) of encyclopedias your parents bought, just for you.
Librarian here. There will always be a need for brick-and-mortar libraries. Much important information lives on the internet now, but lots of local information, especially pre-1990's may never retroactively be housed on the internet. I traced my family's history mostly from a string of tiny (think one-room) libraries from coast to coast, as well as some larger libraries like the Tacoma Public Library and the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore and the Dubois (Pennsylvania) Public Library. Another reason to rely on paper information is that publishers are very careful to check their information for accuracy. Information on the internet is not always validated so rigorously.
Going through books, looking at the index for key words. Kinda fun though however the internet has made the process much easier.
Until mom and dad bout an encyclopedia at the grocery store every week for .99 cents! Funk and Wagnalls!
Born 1950 the library was my home away from home. Card catalogs to look up books and magazines. Finding out about the Science Citation Index in college was a wonder.
I'm probably weird but I loved the smell of the card catalog in the library I used to go to as a kid. I remember getting my first set of encyclopedias and thinking I had won the lottery!
I absolutely loved going to the library and searching through the card files. It was an exercise in solitude. Any information that I got, came as a result of my effort and not handed to me by the likes of Google.
I personally prefer written literature but I am a book lover so I still do my school papers in the library. I am a 43 year old college student .
Having to use a library before computers were commonplace? Hope you're not clumsy because card catalogue drawers can have hundreds of cards in them and they are not secured in there. I don't know how many times I had to put all the cards back in order because I tripped while carrying a drawer to the table.
When I was in junior high, we were doing a unit on the Navajo. Everyone was assigned to do a 10 minute speech and 5 page paper. The teacher had a list of books at the library and you signed up for one. This was to prohibit one person checking out the limited number of books and screwing everyone else. I was dead last so I got a book on corn. I was a city kid so this was almost a punishment. Next year I moved to a very rural school for the first time where I was the first new kid in the class since they started 9 years earlier. I was ostracized for about a month until I overheard a conversation on corn and was able to jump in. On my suggestion, the school library bought the book on corn. It was popular enough they bought other books on different crops. Libraries rock because they are a gateway to the world that's always getting bigger.
I still do that? Like if the textbook for the course is hard to find available/you can't afford to buy it you can find it in the reference books section at the uni library, the ones you can't take home. And sometimes someone else has the book you need and you have to wait. It's not like we don't need books?
Which means you were held to a much lower standard than today and easier grades.
If you had a library nearby and if your mother allowed "dirty books other people have handled, full of germs" into the house.
Only dirty books I ever found were the National Geographic's magazines with the naughty pics of African tribe women boobies.
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Opening up the newspaper to look at the TV guide to see what was on that night.
Going to the bathroom during a commercial break and hearing the dreaded “IT’S ON!!” when you’re not done.
The relationship between audio cassettes and Bic pens (or pencils).
omg smoking EVERYWHERE! In theaters, planes, offices, hospitals, trains, restaurants, schools... just everywhere (and the outrage when it was finally banned lol)
The excitement of going to a video rental store on the weekends to get to pick out a movie.
Actually picking one out was just as exciting as watching the movie.
So, the title of this article will ultimately change and make this comment a bit pointless, but at the time of writing the title is something along the lines of "Boomers list things that Gen X and Millennials won't understand" and I have to point out that Blockbuster only ceased to be a thing well into a Millennial's teenhood. Millennials have experience of picking out rental movies. Gen X certainly did.
Calling the movie theatre to hear the recording with the movie times on it.
When you left work you left work. There is an emergency? Oh well, I guess we can solve that problem tomorrow.
The sheer joy of receiving a handwritten letter from someone you haven't seen in a long time. I really miss the days when I had a nice stationery set, and I would write long letters to friends and relatives.
Taking photos using those little rolls of film and having to take them into a shop for processing. You often wouldn't know if any of the photos were good until a couple of months later.
You also had to manually wind on the camera after every shot.
Picking up or saying goodbye to airline passengers right at the gate
Watching a draft lottery to see if your number would be low enough that you will be drafted to fight in a war in Asia
This one should be higher, it's the first one that actually fits the title, in that it happened to (US) boomers and it is almost unimaginable for most people in the west today. Most of the others would fit better in a list of 'things which people at the younger end of Millennial might not have known, but will have no problem understanding once told'.
Hovering over your stereo with your fingers ready to hit play and record simultaneously while the radio DJ intros the song you've been dying to hear.
Recording movies straight off the TV onto VHS tapes and having the dedication to stop the recording to cut out the ads.
I was pro at doing the cuttings, I should have been a video editor!
Be kind rewind.
Smoking or nonsmoking
I left a message but I think the tape cut out.
So when should I call?
Get off the line!
I got to swing by and drop off some film.
I tried calling but I think he's online right now.
Everything glass is brown and that's normal.
Making plans ahead of time (meet you in front of the theater at 8:25, okay?) and if said friend was late to show up, you had no idea what happened to them. No changing plans last minute, no finding out where they were, just you standing in the meeting place, wondering how long to wait, if you should just tell the ticket seller to let your friend know you’ll be inside etc... (we all had one of those friends).
Buying a home at 3-6 times your annual salary and being able to get by on a single income
1980 Mercedes Benz 450sl, nice car to drive. Rust in the front lower guard, common problem. Also V8 engine is very thirsty.
Asking for and writing down directions to somewhere, or even looking up and following directions on a map.
This I was really good at, I don't think I have ever been lost in my life.
Your friends used to just show up unannounced, and you'd have to hang out with them. It was called a pop in, and it was totally normal.
If there were 2 shows on tv at the same time and day you had to make a choice. No dvr no vcr no on demand
Lining up the carbon paper so you could get two copies of the document you were writing in the typewriter. And then how annoying it was if you made a mistake and had to break out the Twink.
How kids at one point were just everywhere with no supervision. Hell, when I was little it wasn't uncommon for a group of us under the age of 12 to just disappear into the forest/woods/desert for the entire goddamn day. As long as you were back before the streetlights turned on and didn't come back injured your parents just did not give a f**k so long as you were out of the house and out of their way.
Also, and this is definitely a guy thing, but every friend group had that friend with an older brother who at a certain point would bequeath their entire porn collection onto the younger kids, usually by telling them where it was hidden. I've seen hollowed out trees with hidden trap doors that had entire libraries of ancient playboy, hustler, and misc porno mags in them. Now if a kid wants to look at porn and their parents don't lock everything down, they just go to any of the millions of available sites for it.
I think youth do understand mundane things like landline phones and B/W TVs, but I don't think they understand how different the life felt back then. I'd say mobile phones and Internet caused the change somewhere in 2000-2005. We went from unconnected to always connected.
The world back then felt much slower. The days that were simply boring and nothing to do were super common. Today? I can't remember when I was previously really bored. Everything is so available and entertaining.
I also remember how small the world felt. Like, there's your family, guys at work, relatives and that's about it. Someone might have had a pen pal. You couldn't follow your idols, instead you just imagined how they were through their work and perhaps a poster.
Personally I'm super glad that I got the change to see both worlds.
Boredom is good though, it stimulates the brain to be more creative. We need more boredom these days. The constant stream of stimulation shortens your attention span and has other negative effects. I was born in 1990 and would give anything to go back to the days we were not constantly connected to everyone and everything. I want the slow days back. That peace was something else.
Getting in your vehicle and driving to your friends house to see if they were home. No cell phones, gas was cheap. Driving was freedom.
I miss not knowing where anyone was on a Friday night. You just had to drive around to all the regular spots looking for your friends. You didn't always find them but sometimes you met other cool people and had other adventures. There's less chance for serendipity when everyone knows where everyone is 24/7.
When I was a teen in the mid 90s growing up in NW London, whatever we were doing, everyone would end up at a particular bakery as it was the only one open at 2am to get beigels. Then we would see all the other people we know. It was a mass gathering every Saturday night. Was a lot of fun
Having to call your best friend on a landline and the ensuing anxiety that:
A. Their mom might answer. B. They might not be home and who the hell knows where they are?! C. Nobody answers and how long do I wait to call back???
The worst is when you called a landline looking for a friend and mum answered. "Is Jim there?", you ask. "No, he told me he was out with you today. I wonder where he's gone and who he's with?". You instantly know you're friend is about to be grounded forever the second he returns home. Sorry, dude.
Note: this post originally had 51 images. It’s been shortened to the top 35 images based on user votes.
Do any of these people even know how old millennials are? We grew up with most of these things.
I think the "Boomers" they asked about this are the same people that see teenagers loitering around and shout about how "those bloody lazy Millennials are on my lawn again!", not realizing we've been adults for over a decade.
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As an older millennial, I recognise the majority of these from my childhood. This is a "Gen X and Millenial" list. If it was boomers it would be more like "I remember steam trains and getting messages by telegram".
I'm a younger millennial entering my 30's but I remember most of these... My brother is younger millenial and he does too...
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FIX THE ARTICLE TITLE. I only made it five down the list before realising I really need a shortcut button for "Gen X and Millennial's also did this because the thing that replaced it came out in the 1990s!". Even the thumbnail - Gen X definitely had to rewind tapes with a pencil because that was still a thing long into the late 80s when CDs came along, which means older Millennials will at least have SEEN it being done in their early childhood. PLEASE for the love of sanity, learn to define the generational gaps correctly.
Or better yet - stop these articles about generational issues completely. Everything is changing, constantly, all the time, for the better or the worse - there is next to nothing one generation could really "claim" solely for themselves. And what is the purpose of it anyway? If you want to get into a nostalgic mood, why do not name these lists "Who else also remembers these things?" or something like that - why do we always have to put certain groups of people up against each other?
Load More Replies... Fix the title, millennials are in their 30s now. We grew up with most of these things.
It seems some people still think Millennials were born in 2000. The name and birth years of the generation are defined by when they reach adulthood (18-21), not by when they are born. Millennials were born between 1981 and 1996. They grew up with most of the stuff on this list.
I, uhm, still think 2000 was ten years ago. Actually, the late 90s were 10 years ago.
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GenXer here, born in 67. All but two of these are things we went through, not just Boomers.
Don't take this the wrong way - I think they might be including you in the "older people" bit. *cringe. I wouldn't but gen z isn't the newest generation on the planet anymore...
Load More Replies... There is literally nothing on this list that Generation X doesn't understand.
Did the title of this article get changed at some point? There are a lot of comments about BP getting the age range for Millenials wrong but, the title doesn't say anything about that. Did it used to say Millenial?
Yes. About 12 hours ago it said something along the lines of "Boomers list things that Gen X and Millennials won't understand"
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I like a lot of what is on here and you know what they all have something in common, being more present in your life. Let's take for example 12, 21, 27 and 34 these can be solved by ditching the cell phone. Sometimes I leave the house without it but definitely not enough. It should be more of a common practice that everyone just leave that f****r at home.
Everyone who is commenting that these are things Millennials and Gen Xers would know about do not seem to realize that they are not "today's youth." Today's youth are your kids. My kids have never experienced any of those things. They have only heard about them from their old parents saying "back in my day..."
I guess by all the confusion in the names we call ourselves we don't really know ourselves. Call me old I don't care cause that's what I am, and I enjoyed getting here
It took all day to download ten seconds of porn. According to a friend.
We have cell phones, computers and 5G. When boomers were in highschool they were expected to learn history and understand it. We have access to information about hieroglyphs from 3200-3400 BC. We can understand these things perfectly. I wasn't surprised or shocked ONE time when I read this, neither was the 14 year old relative I sent it too.
Australian here - I remember going down to the phone booth (parents couldn't afford a home phone until I was 16) and dialling the free-call time number (1194) to set my watch - "at the third stroke it will be 9:34 and 10 seconds - beep, beep, beep. At the third stroke it will be 9:34 and 20 seconds ...."
I just thought of something. It says "older people" and something that todays youth wouldn't understand. My dad would say world war 2. And I'd have to agree with him because I would say that the true youths of today do not understand 9/11. It's now called patriot day.
I was at least seven before we got a TV, and both shows and comic books were restricted. Class sizes were always over 30, so I could just hide out.
Do any of these people even know how old millennials are? We grew up with most of these things.
I think the "Boomers" they asked about this are the same people that see teenagers loitering around and shout about how "those bloody lazy Millennials are on my lawn again!", not realizing we've been adults for over a decade.
Load More Replies... As an older millennial, I recognise the majority of these from my childhood. This is a "Gen X and Millenial" list. If it was boomers it would be more like "I remember steam trains and getting messages by telegram".
I'm a younger millennial entering my 30's but I remember most of these... My brother is younger millenial and he does too...
Load More Replies... FIX THE ARTICLE TITLE. I only made it five down the list before realising I really need a shortcut button for "Gen X and Millennial's also did this because the thing that replaced it came out in the 1990s!". Even the thumbnail - Gen X definitely had to rewind tapes with a pencil because that was still a thing long into the late 80s when CDs came along, which means older Millennials will at least have SEEN it being done in their early childhood. PLEASE for the love of sanity, learn to define the generational gaps correctly.
Or better yet - stop these articles about generational issues completely. Everything is changing, constantly, all the time, for the better or the worse - there is next to nothing one generation could really "claim" solely for themselves. And what is the purpose of it anyway? If you want to get into a nostalgic mood, why do not name these lists "Who else also remembers these things?" or something like that - why do we always have to put certain groups of people up against each other?
Load More Replies... Fix the title, millennials are in their 30s now. We grew up with most of these things.
It seems some people still think Millennials were born in 2000. The name and birth years of the generation are defined by when they reach adulthood (18-21), not by when they are born. Millennials were born between 1981 and 1996. They grew up with most of the stuff on this list.
I, uhm, still think 2000 was ten years ago. Actually, the late 90s were 10 years ago.
Load More Replies... GenXer here, born in 67. All but two of these are things we went through, not just Boomers.
Don't take this the wrong way - I think they might be including you in the "older people" bit. *cringe. I wouldn't but gen z isn't the newest generation on the planet anymore...
Load More Replies... There is literally nothing on this list that Generation X doesn't understand.
Did the title of this article get changed at some point? There are a lot of comments about BP getting the age range for Millenials wrong but, the title doesn't say anything about that. Did it used to say Millenial?
Yes. About 12 hours ago it said something along the lines of "Boomers list things that Gen X and Millennials won't understand"
Load More Replies... I like a lot of what is on here and you know what they all have something in common, being more present in your life. Let's take for example 12, 21, 27 and 34 these can be solved by ditching the cell phone. Sometimes I leave the house without it but definitely not enough. It should be more of a common practice that everyone just leave that f****r at home.
Everyone who is commenting that these are things Millennials and Gen Xers would know about do not seem to realize that they are not "today's youth." Today's youth are your kids. My kids have never experienced any of those things. They have only heard about them from their old parents saying "back in my day..."
I guess by all the confusion in the names we call ourselves we don't really know ourselves. Call me old I don't care cause that's what I am, and I enjoyed getting here
It took all day to download ten seconds of porn. According to a friend.
We have cell phones, computers and 5G. When boomers were in highschool they were expected to learn history and understand it. We have access to information about hieroglyphs from 3200-3400 BC. We can understand these things perfectly. I wasn't surprised or shocked ONE time when I read this, neither was the 14 year old relative I sent it too.
Australian here - I remember going down to the phone booth (parents couldn't afford a home phone until I was 16) and dialling the free-call time number (1194) to set my watch - "at the third stroke it will be 9:34 and 10 seconds - beep, beep, beep. At the third stroke it will be 9:34 and 20 seconds ...."
I just thought of something. It says "older people" and something that todays youth wouldn't understand. My dad would say world war 2. And I'd have to agree with him because I would say that the true youths of today do not understand 9/11. It's now called patriot day.
I was at least seven before we got a TV, and both shows and comic books were restricted. Class sizes were always over 30, so I could just hide out.
