Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
then open in external browser
and click "Open in External Browser" 
35 Older People Reminisce About The Moments They Miss That Gen Z Will Never Get To Experience
Technological advancements can be great. I honestly don’t know what I would do without my air fryer or my smartphone, and I’m grateful every day that I don’t have to fiddle with paper maps when traveling. But the days before we had constant access to the internet weren’t all bad, and some Reddit users have recently been reminiscing on their favorite aspects of “way back when.”
Below, you’ll find a list of things that Gen Z and all of the generations to come will never get to experience, from answering the phone without knowing who’s on the other line to being unable to contact Mom and Dad while playing at the park. Enjoy scrolling through this nostalgic list, and be sure to upvote the experiences you wish your grandchildren could have!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
here was a high standard in journalism. Striving for facts and objectivity was required. We had a limited number of channels on the TV, so all three broadcast news programs chose and reported pretty much the same news stories with identical, essential facts. Opinions of political parties over bills and whatnot were reported, not critiqued. i_hate_this_part_85: Back then, our journalists were actually held to a standard and would get fired if they knowingly lied. Yes, there were more gatekeepers, but there was much less divisiveness built into every damn thing.
RELATED:
#2
The freedom that comes with your parents not really knowing where you were. We just rode our bikes, all with out being tethered to a cell phone.
listenyall replied:
That whole 'delaying the inevitable' period of time when you knew that your parents were probably already mad because you were late, but you stayed out anyway because they couldn't yell at you until you were home!
Kristiina 2 years ago
We ran wild and free when I was young. Had lot of friends and learned to cope with life, social skills, and coping mechanisms. It wasn't always safe, we did some really stupid stuff but we made it.
Scott Rackley 2 years ago
We lived right on the border of a national forest and we would be gone all day long in the woods. With the sandwiches and stuff the parents made us take. That's right, knowingly sending your kids off into the wilderness with supplies. It was awesome.
Load More Replies...
Hawkmoon 2 years ago
Be home by night fall. And all the neighbors stands together to enforce that law! If I had a penny for every time I've heard "Shouldn't you be home, now?" :-)
Tee Rat 2 years ago
Way too many times. I thought some of those people never slept.
Load More Replies...
Sapna Sarfare 2 years ago
I am not that old but old enough. And yes, this was our life... roaming around and just enjoying with friends
Heffalump 2 years ago
It seems like parents today think their job is to keep you alive for 18 years, rather than to produce a functioning adult.
VioletHunter 2 years ago
They seem to think it's their job to supervise a kid-sized prisoner who is never allowed to do anything on their own in order to create a socially inept, anxiety riddled adult who collapses at the slightest problem.
Load More Replies...
Margaret H 2 years ago
It startles me to think that parents these days would be jailed for child abuse for letting us do half of the things we all did and which nobody considered unusual.
Scott Rackley 2 years ago
Mom would have definitely got charged with child neglect. Once I hit junior high I looked after my younger brother all by myself after school. At 12-13. Didn't think anything of it, got home, waited for him to get home, fixed him a sandwich or something, then we rode bikes or something till Mom got home.
Load More Replies... John Dilligaf 2 years ago
parents not just letting you roam free, but actively kicking you out of house and telling you to not come back in until lunch time. And on that related note: eating lunch at whatever friend's house you were playing at because every parent was expected to at least have an apple and a PB&J sandwich for the kids who were over playing with her kids.
Johnny Storm 2 years ago
I can't imagine kids nowaday doing some of the mild stupid stuff we do in our days..
Valerie G. 2 years ago
Mom's mantra was "when the sun goes down, you come home, growing things don't flourish in the dark".
Forrest McCanless 2 years ago
I'm 60, and still don't carry a phone - wife and kids usually know where I am - good enough. Work can freakin' wait!
Lou Tribby 2 years ago
I never had this. I could ride, but I had to be back every 15 minutes. She even got me a watch.
Milton’s Assistant 2 years ago
It’s more about serial killers and kidnappers than it is cell phones….
Darian Starfrog 2 years ago
Lol they existed back then, they always have, but statistically you'll never meet one, and besides, it's usually someone you do know
Load More Replies...
Amy Pontious 2 years ago
Yep except when your parents knew your friends parents and got yelled at by them! Good times
realenancy170 2 years ago
We were pushed out of the house by 9am with a pb &j sandwich. We drank out of hoses and roamed until supper. After that we went back out until the streetlights came on. We learned independence and a love of out doors.
cartoon ghosts 2 years ago
I wish I had this. My mom is kinda controlling but she does allow me to wander around as long as she knows exactly where I'm going, what I'm doing, and I have my location on. I wish I could just leave and do whatever, it's not like I have a plan when I go I just want to get out for a while
Tamra 2 years ago
I'm a Gen X parent, and you aren't wrong. I basically grew up feral and when I became a parent, I just swung too far the other way. I had to reign myself in countless times over the years. I hope I was able to find some balance in there somewhere.
Load More Replies...
Malfar 2 years ago
Ah yes, the times where people were not yet spooked by all the incidents. When I was a schoolkid in Ukraine (1997-2007) there were no guards at the school. Technically, there was a guard, but she was also the supply manager, so she wasn't always guarding the entrance, and there were several unguarded exits (one at the diner, but it was dangerously close to the windows of the principal's office and another one in the gym). There was a park near the school, and a computer gaming club was renting space IN THE VERY BUILDING OF THE SCHOOL. Also, there were several small shops with snacks near the school, so any kid could leave the school on the lunch break (or basically any break) to buy some snacks, skip classes and go to the PC club (you pay to play for an hour or two), or go to the park, or simply go home. And any adult could enter the school at any time, no questions asked. "Must be someone's parent or an ex-student here to visit for nostalgia's sake".
UnpopularPanda 2 years ago
When our parents thought we rode our bikes, we didn't actually do that, maybe rode them for like 10 mins, reached somewhere crazy and did random stuff. I remember I didn't even have a bike or knew to ride one but went with friends to an empty filed that had nothing but an abandoned well in the middle, there was a tubelight factory nearby which used the place as a dumping ground, all we did was through the discarded tubes in that well which made a loud 💥 boom noise and we enjoyed it. No adults or officials nearby. Just us kids with no devices or restrictions. Now the place is lost in the concrete jungle and and is a densely populated residential area, no factories nearby.
Frederick 2 years ago
Huh. No wonder so many kids were r*ped and murdered and the crooks never found. That would be so easy, unfortunately. Freebies everywhere.
Mila Preradović 2 years ago
Why do you think that child mortality going down has to do with restricted freedom and not better healthcare, improvements in social system etc.? Statistics are easy to manipulate. When I was 10-11, my country had high children mortality rate; without context you could jump to wrong conclusions, but knowing it was early nineties in the Balkans makes it all different, doesn't it?
Load More Replies...
#3
Albums and perusing record stores. The posters, album artwork and the incense smell.
#4
Music festivals where everyone is just sitting and enjoying the vibes. No recording, no filming. Why can't we do this again? Prohibit devices at live venues.
#5
Being able to buy tickets at concert venues without having to worry about associated fees and s**tty broker companies. KonaKathie replied: We met so many people while waiting in line to buy tickets. Oftentimes, they became good friends.
#6
Walking a loved one all the way to the departure gate and watching their plane take off.
chasonreddit replied:
And meeting them at the gate when they returned.
#8
Wing windows.
Matthew Thompson 2 years ago
Hand in hand with the flat-topped window glass that would hold the tray when you got your meal 'for here' at Sonic.
#9
Analog controls in cars and appliances — touch screen and digital displays are far less functional than knobs and springs and stuff —
#10
Waiting for the mail to see if you had a card or letter
troufaki13 2 years ago
I used to have pen pals from all over the world and I loved it! 🥰 It's a shame we didn't stay in touch though... 😥
#11
The communal experience of television or radio entertainment. Growing up in the 70s and 80s we didn’t have cable. We had like 4 TV stations. Everyone was pretty much watching the same thing in the evenings and folks would discuss the shows at school or work the next day. Same with radio - as teens, we all tried to catch Rick Dees or Kasey Kasem on the weekend so we knew what was cool and new.
Elizabeth Elliot 2 years ago
It drew the country together; everyone had the same cultural touchstones!
#12
Phone booths. The feeling of privacy while making a call was unique to the time - being able to step out of the noisy world for a moment and still see it in motion, living, pulsating. The quiet desperation of taking notes on scraps of paper, or worse, on a page of a phone book, then ripping that page out to keep the note.
Elizabeth Elliot 2 years ago
The disappointment of hearing your only coin go 'Thunk!' into the reject tray...
#13
Road maps. The person in the passenger seat would tell the driver where to go, etc. There was almost always a stop at a gas station for directions on long trips thru unfamiliar areas. Great times, always an adventure!
#14
Slamming the phone receiver down as hard as you can when you're mad and hanging up on someone.
Party lines on the telephone. Literally sharing a phone line with someone else and being able to listen in on their phone conversations. It was also annoying when the 'other party' was using the line and you needed to make a call.
Being gone all day and no one could reach you.
#15
Encyclopedias and other reference books - not many left now except ones on subjects students might need. There used to be books for everything, and you'd always end up learning about more things than you opened the book to find.
Mycroft1967 2 years ago
My google as a kid was the reference section and a card catalog. It was all there- you just had to find it.
#16
They will never know the anticipation of waking up, seeing snow on the ground, turning on the radio and waiting for the announcer to say if your school will be closed or not. He'd have a list and be reading it and you'd wait for him to get to your school... almost there... here it comes... and then YESS!!!!!!!
My dad actually worked as a DJ at a radio station which did the school closings. They had a list of passwords given to each school, so that when the school called the radio station, they could verify it was not a prank. The passwords were literal words, like "daisy" or some such.
Downunderdude 2 years ago
Looxury. In my day, even if t'were 20 foot of snow, we still had to walk 25 miles to school. And we didn't have shoes cos our parents were poor. Kids of today...
#17
Sitting at a red light jamming to a good song on the radio and looking over to notice the neighboring driver is jamming to the same song, so you both start an impromptu jam session until the light turns green.
scag$y 2 years ago
I came close to a similar vibe this summer. It was hot, I was stuck in city traffic and a guy in a convertible came alongside me from the opposite direction. A dance track had just finished on his (loud) system and so I asked him, 'Have you got any classic rock mate?' and he said, 'No.'. Wild.
#18
Going to a cell phone free concert
pbrooks19 replied:
No cellphones at theme parks, or any place of interest, really. So many people nowadays just shoot self-absorbed videos or just get in the way and distract everyone by being annoying with them.
#19
The satisfaction of flipping open a newspaper and bending it just so, so that it would stay open in front of you while you held it, crinkling slightly (and turning your fingers black.) I didn't realize I missed this until recently when I needed to use some newspaper at work and there was a stack of them, and I flicked open a double-page expertly despite not having done it for...decades?
#20
This is actually from the late 90/early 2000s, but I still really, really miss it:
cell phone manufacturers competing over who could have the SMALLEST cell phone. It was REALLY NICE to have a phone you could actually put into your pocket!
#21
Typewriters. Carbon paper. Mimeograph machines.
#22
Stereos weighed a lot back in the day, for sure. But they sounded fantastic. People today think earbuds are high-fidelity sound.
#23
The newer generation will never know the feeling of slamming a phone down when someone pissed you off on a call, then slamming it two or three more times for good measure. Hitting a button on a touchscreen to hang up on someone's stupidity just doesn't give the same satisfaction.
SirWriteALot 2 years ago
They just whack the phone against a wall or into the lake or something.
#24
I bought a homemade ice-cream maker -- the old kind with a cedar bucket that leaks salt water over the porch, and a hand crank. I'd been telling my kids how much better it was, so they told me to just get one. Lo-and-behold, found one on an auction site. We pull it out a couple times a summer, and the ice cream IS as good as I remembered from childhood.
#25
Taking most of Sunday to read the Sunday paper with the big crossword puzzle. Having to look up clues in the encyclopedia or dictionary. Reading all the sale inserts. Now I get the paper in an iPad don’t work the puzzles and no Sunday inserts.
KittyGaming 2 years ago
When i was little and we would get the newspaper i would take the comics away as soon as i could and spend all of Sunday morning reading the comics
#26
I kinda miss the 80’s - early 90’s computer era. It was fun to try and figure stuff out without having the internet to help you. Plus people really figured out how to squeeze some fun games out of those computers. Trading games with your friends was fun.
diabooklady:
I miss the early internet in the mid-1990s, when there weren't all these ads!
Solidhog 2 years ago
I miss the early WWW when websites used the Internet for what it was originally designed for. Sharing information. Instead of trying to be over technical, artistic and hard to navigate like now, they were simple, displayed information clearly and finding contact details was not the equivalent of solving the da vinci code.
#27
Sitting alone in your room sobbing over some guy when you are 16, moving that needle to play the same sad song over and over again on your record player while your Bonne Bell black eyeliner and Yardley of London white lipstick melts down your face, until your father screams at you to “come downstairs and eat dinner for Chrissake and stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!”
#28
No caller ID that allowed me and my punk friends to do some amazing telephone pranks.
Marco Richter 2 years ago
I recieved a prank call once, from a girl in my class telling me how much she loves me and if we should date. I knew it was a prank call so I handeled it respectively... Worst part was, I really had a crush on that girl :(
#30
Cleaning the carburetor and adjusting the points on a truck engine with an engine compartment big enough you could stand inside it.
Smelling mimeographs.
Getting that distant FM radio station tuned in *just right*.
Checking your answering machine when you got home.
Folding up a manual convertible top in the rain. (or leaving it at home and driving in the rain getting stared at by all the other cars thinking you were the idiot that you were)
The cha-chunk sound an 8-track made in the middle of a long song.
Collecting points for the Radio Shack Battery Club.
(maybe not totally obsolete, but not done) Drinking water out of any random neighbor's hose in the summer.
Making Christmas wreaths out of folded punch cards and spray painting them gold.
Souping up your bicycle with baseball cards attached to the wheels with clothespins.
Shoot, to remember any more I would need a bong hit. Oh! Home made Bongs. Cleaning pot on record covers.
Robert T 2 years ago
I still have a carburettor on my classic. Have to take it off, clean it and change all the gaskets periodicallys. Fascinating piece of technology - very few moving parts but for the throttle butterflies and on mine, a mechanical pump on the bottom. Whole thing works by air pressure alone.
#31
It's a weird one but I miss not being able to hear songs or knowing what they are. Any song you want now is a click away, but it used to take sometimes decades to find a track or even how to start to look for it.
Tucker Cahooter 2 years ago
So true. There was a song that stuck in my head literally for over 40 years having only heard it once on radio that I never knew what it was called but now thanks to Youtube I can now identify (it was "Gangsters" by The Specials)
#32
Never knowing who was calling until you picked up the phone. Back in 60s and 70s, there weren't even answering machines, so if you didn't pick up, no idea who called.
And on the other side of that coin, when you called somebody and they didn't answer, you know it's not because they didn't want to task to you. It's because they weren't available.
#33
Hitchhiking to out door concerts back in the 70's.Freedom. When we had to get somewhere- we would hitchhike. Violence made it obsolete.
#35
I miss the friendly arguments that we used to have about who was the better ballplayer. Nowadays you can look up statistics immediately, but in the 70's and 80's it was your word again your buddies as to who was better.
What do you think ?
Rostit . 2 years ago
Nostalgia forgets how bad things were too. I like the hear and now. The future will be cool too
VioletHunter 2 years ago (edited)
The here and now isn't a particular great place imo.
Load More Replies...
BravePanda 2 years ago
If you grew up in a remote, rural area, you had very little conceptual awareness of urban life. TV and movies rarely showed things like mass transit, how to hail a cab, how to identify the safest walking routes, how to choose affordable and amazing restaurants, how to find apartments, etc. The learning curve was steep and often scary!
jiajun xiao 2 years ago
Film projection! Digital projection is convenient but sucks (except Dolby Cinema)!!!
sofacushionfort 2 years ago
You youngsters will never know the engagement of polite conversation after entries on Bored Panda listicles, now that they get amputated and sent to the cornfield in a few hours with no recall button
The Original Bruno 2 years ago (edited)
Boom boxes sounded differently on a warm spring or summer day that just sounded like summer. And kids didn't need to swap phone numbers; you only needed each others' Dad's name, because the phone company doxxed EVERY adult male. (In the suburbs and rural parts, you could even know if someone was from your neighborhood by the first three digits of their phone number.)
Catherine Spencer-Mills 2 years ago
I'm 72 and I miss only a couple of these (24 and 25 eg) the rest, not missed at all. I really, really don't miss the computers of the 80-90s as I was IT support and had to carry those suckers up and down stairs in some buildings.
The Redhead 2 years ago
For context I was born in the early 80's so I'm speaking of mid 90s experiences. TV seasons & movie releases. TV wise from September to May "these" shows are broadcast. Summer was reruns or Summer season shows only. So you always knew how long you had to wait for your show to come back. Unlike now "This" show premiers in February 10 episodes are released instantly. The next season of the show could start in October, or a year or two later. It's unpredictable and always up in the air. As for movies first it was released in theaters, the a few months later it was released for rental, finally a couple of months after that you were finally able to purchase the movie. If you missed it in the theater you hoped that you could rent it from the video store because only so many copies were available so it was pure luck. It was annoying yes but the anticipation was part of the fun.
Duckie Measles 2 years ago
Gen-X were born between 1965-1980, so certainly older than those born after 1997 (Gen-Z). I'm a millennial ('91) and don't share most of these experiences.
Load More Replies...
MongoMarcia 2 years ago
The *ding ding* when you pulled into the gas station. The smell of the gas.
Milton’s Assistant 2 years ago
Forreal, though? I’m nostalgic about a time when people weren’t so forking pressed about cell phones/devices.
Milton’s Assistant 2 years ago
Darn these cell phones! Back in my day we used to drink our beatings from the hose in a grandfather clock’s truck bed with no seat belts!!
Mommy Panda 2 years ago
Whoever made the title of this post should get a whack to the back of the head. 35 》OLDER《 people...?! Thanks for making me feel like a fossil...
Bob La Capra 2 years ago (edited)
I grew up in a rural area listening to an AM rock station which had to redirect it's signal to the north (away from me) at sunset. There was a short delay while the sun set further before WLS from Chicago would come in. Eventually, a high powered FM in the area switch to a Top 40 format so listened to them. I don't listen to the radio at all anymore, I can't stand commercials.
Rostit . 2 years ago
Nostalgia forgets how bad things were too. I like the hear and now. The future will be cool too
VioletHunter 2 years ago (edited)
The here and now isn't a particular great place imo.
Load More Replies... BravePanda 2 years ago
If you grew up in a remote, rural area, you had very little conceptual awareness of urban life. TV and movies rarely showed things like mass transit, how to hail a cab, how to identify the safest walking routes, how to choose affordable and amazing restaurants, how to find apartments, etc. The learning curve was steep and often scary!
jiajun xiao 2 years ago
Film projection! Digital projection is convenient but sucks (except Dolby Cinema)!!!
sofacushionfort 2 years ago
You youngsters will never know the engagement of polite conversation after entries on Bored Panda listicles, now that they get amputated and sent to the cornfield in a few hours with no recall button
The Original Bruno 2 years ago (edited)
Boom boxes sounded differently on a warm spring or summer day that just sounded like summer. And kids didn't need to swap phone numbers; you only needed each others' Dad's name, because the phone company doxxed EVERY adult male. (In the suburbs and rural parts, you could even know if someone was from your neighborhood by the first three digits of their phone number.)
Catherine Spencer-Mills 2 years ago
I'm 72 and I miss only a couple of these (24 and 25 eg) the rest, not missed at all. I really, really don't miss the computers of the 80-90s as I was IT support and had to carry those suckers up and down stairs in some buildings.
The Redhead 2 years ago
For context I was born in the early 80's so I'm speaking of mid 90s experiences. TV seasons & movie releases. TV wise from September to May "these" shows are broadcast. Summer was reruns or Summer season shows only. So you always knew how long you had to wait for your show to come back. Unlike now "This" show premiers in February 10 episodes are released instantly. The next season of the show could start in October, or a year or two later. It's unpredictable and always up in the air. As for movies first it was released in theaters, the a few months later it was released for rental, finally a couple of months after that you were finally able to purchase the movie. If you missed it in the theater you hoped that you could rent it from the video store because only so many copies were available so it was pure luck. It was annoying yes but the anticipation was part of the fun.
Duckie Measles 2 years ago
Gen-X were born between 1965-1980, so certainly older than those born after 1997 (Gen-Z). I'm a millennial ('91) and don't share most of these experiences.
Load More Replies... MongoMarcia 2 years ago
The *ding ding* when you pulled into the gas station. The smell of the gas.
Milton’s Assistant 2 years ago
Forreal, though? I’m nostalgic about a time when people weren’t so forking pressed about cell phones/devices.
Milton’s Assistant 2 years ago
Darn these cell phones! Back in my day we used to drink our beatings from the hose in a grandfather clock’s truck bed with no seat belts!!
Mommy Panda 2 years ago
Whoever made the title of this post should get a whack to the back of the head. 35 》OLDER《 people...?! Thanks for making me feel like a fossil...
Bob La Capra 2 years ago (edited)
I grew up in a rural area listening to an AM rock station which had to redirect it's signal to the north (away from me) at sunset. There was a short delay while the sun set further before WLS from Chicago would come in. Eventually, a high powered FM in the area switch to a Top 40 format so listened to them. I don't listen to the radio at all anymore, I can't stand commercials.
You May Like 49 Fascinating Photos Revealing What The World’s Capitals Looked Like Way Before Modern Times 39 Times Real Life Was Much Weirder Than Fiction, According To The People Who Lived It 43 Foreigners Share Traits That Instantly Reveal Someone Is American
Viktorija Strelciunaite
Rūta Zumbrickaitė
Dominyka Proškėnaitė
Related on Bored Panda
