Freya of GIRLS, one of my favorite substackers, just posted an article on one of my favorite book-authors’ substack called “A Time We Never Knew”, on the wistfulness that Gen-Zers can experience when seeing videos of high school in the 1990s and very early 2000s, back when humanity had not been reduced by its own devices into stoop-necked mental cases. I don’t think it’s paywalled, so click away. Here are some quotes, though.
But God, that loss—that feeling. I am grieving something I never knew. I am grieving that giddy excitement over waiting for and playing a new vinyl for the first time, when now we instantly stream songs on YouTube, use Spotify with no waiting, and skip impatiently through new albums. I am grieving the anticipation of going to the movies, when all I’ve ever known is Netflix on demand and spoilers, and struggling to sit through a entire film. I am grieving simple joys—reading a magazine; playing a board game; hitting a swing-ball for hours—where now even split-screen TikToks, where two videos play at the same time, don’t satisfy our insatiable, miserable need to be entertained. [Emphasis added] I even have a sense of loss for experiencing tragic news––a moment in world history––without being drenched in endless opinions online. I am homesick for a time when something horrific happened in the world, and instead of immediately opening Twitter, people held each other. A time of more shared feeling, and less frantic analyzing. A time of being both disconnected but supremely connected. […]
Maybe all generations look back with nostalgia. But my sense is [Gen-Zers] don’t do it for a time they never knew. They feel a longing for their youth; their childhood. My parents might flick through black-and-white photos and hear stories from my grandparents and feel intrigued, but not so much grief. I think there is something distinctly different and deserving of our attention about online forums filled with Zoomers wishing that they lived before social media. Wishing it didn’t exist. These are children grieving their youth while they are still children. These are teens mourning childhoods they wasted on the internet, writing laments such as “I know I’m still young (14F), and I have so many years to make up for that, but I can’t help but hate myself for those years I wasted doing nothing all day but go on my stupid phone.” […]
But we have to remember what has been lost. When we are grieving record stores, mixtapes, old-school romance, and friends goofing around in ‘90s high schools, what are we actually grieving? Delayed gratification. Deeper connection. Play and fun. Risk and thrill. Life with less obsessive self-scrutiny. These are things we can reclaim—if we remember what they are worth and roll back the phone-based world that degraded them.
We have to start somewhere. I suppose what I’m asking for here is some sympathy and a little more grace. It’s easy to mock Gen Z and Gen Alpha for their soaring screen time, to roll your eyes at teenagers wasting their youth in their rooms, ruminating about themselves, and feeling hopeless about the future. But they are trying their best to keep up with a world so agonizingly different from any before it—and it is the only one they have ever known.
So please. Next time you cringe at Gen Z for not coping, for not feeling cut out for this world, remember how painful it is to think that the good times are over. Then imagine how much more painful it would be to realize you never knew them.
Reading Freely 
My High School experience was in the 1970’s so VERY different to the ‘modern’ age! No phones, no Facebook….. Bliss…… [lol]
Better music, too. I think my class was probably one of the last generations for whom cellphones were a useful thing if we broke down, but nothing else. A few people had them, but they were tiny things and we weren’t allowed to have them or any other electronic devices (Discmans and Gameboys) out, or they’d be confiscated. Fond memories of arriving to school one day and being told classes were cancelled because of a gas leak or something, then just spending the morning driving around up to teenage mischief because our parents had no idea and there were no electronic leashes.
I do feel *so* lucky to have missed the whole Social Media thing, both in school & later @ Uni. Not being constantly available or ‘required’ to answer or comment immediately on *everything* was a true blessing. Being able to disappear too was *great* You could hide, alone or with someone else, and if you were both a little skilful & lucky then no one could find you. Heaven. Try that these days!! [lol]
I *think* I saw my first mobile phone in the late 80’s – which came with its own carrying handle and battery that could’ve started a car…. [grin]
80’s music was the BEST – although the *late* 70’s produced some good stuff too.
I think you’ve mentioned you never got into the GTA series, but they incorporated the rise of cellphones in a funny way. The original from 2001 had pagers for the player to get missions and such, but when Vice City came out, cellphones were becoming a thing — so the character got a huge cellphone to receive calls/missions. Always struck me as funny that Claude from 2001 was less tech-sophisticated than Tommy in 1986.
When we were building our office site I had to wear a radio to communicate with the other guys or back to ‘base’. When they put the phones in we all had pagers – and kept the radios just in case. It was only *very* recently – about a year or so before I left – that we were given work iPhones.
Yup, never played GTA (or Fallout as you asked elsewhere. Only 1 episode viewed so far on Prime).
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