Most significant change in your lifetime?

[AncientSoul]

From a business perspective it is the Internet. Entire businesses were started and run solely on the Internet. Many small business owners' livelihood is mostly Internet based. It has affected the retail industry big time. Big companies like Amazon are internet based. Many businesses have shut down due to the inability to compete with other businesses online.

Without the Internet there is no social media to connect with others. It has affected kids' lives and activities, though sometimes not in a good way. But it has given us instant access to a wealth of helpful information we would have otherwise had to get through books, local word-of-mouth, etc.

 

[LSUmiss]

I graduated the same year, and they eliminated the smoking courtyard on campus just before I started high school. They'd enforced an age limit on it for years before that - only staff and students 18+ could use it - but it was still there. My freshman year was the first year students just weren't allowed to smoke during the school day and staff had to go off-campus at lunch/during a free hour.



Statistically, it is safer. We just don't believe that because media & technology have so greatly expanded our awareness of the worst case scenarios.

My kids have lost a couple of acquaintances so far - one to cancer, one to the flu. I don't recall knowing any young people who died when I was a kid until a friend's brother killed himself when we were in high school. And my brother had a friend who lost a sister to leukemia. Obviously none of those deaths had anything to do with us being allowed to ride bikes and run all over our neighborhood unsupervised. Fortunately, our community is still very much like that. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of kids in my youngest's age range living nearby, so she doesn't do it nearly as much as my older kids did when they were her age (9).

Well if it’s statistically it’s safer perhaps that can be partly attributed to the “helicopter” parenting so maybe it’s not a bad thing?

 

[maxaroni]

Along with the internet...I'm gonna go with the way we listen to music. I remember it being a big deal when we got a stereo..two speakers!!! For one of my birthdays I got a transistor radio, only had AM radio, no FM. Buying 45's and being cool if you had a record player that could stack several at a time. Man, did that save some much needed time 8-tracks, then on to cassettes and then to cds. Wow, when itunes came out...jeeze jouise...we can buy it and then download it to a cd...way cool!! Now we just stream it and don't even need an aux cable anymore, its all wireless

Just talking about a transistor radio, only AM and loving it! LOL. I used to lay in bed, trying to sleep and listening to it, having it lay on my ear so it was really low. Yes, the albums and stacking them, yikes the warning about dropping the needle! It’s all crazy but so convenient.

 

[mummabear]

I think that kids need unstructured play and socialization. Like I said, I wouldn’t let my kids go to the beach alone... But they don’t even really know the kids around here because no one just goes outside to play! That’s the main difference to me.

Different areas I guess. We live down a quiet cul de sac, all the neighbours kids ride their bikes around and disappear into each other’s houses to play-however there is always an adult watching the kids on the street.

I would disagree with your assessment that "many didn't" survive.

My parents tell how the first assembly after summer break was a memorial for those that didn’t survive summer-their yearbooks confirm this with the memorial pages.
By the time I was growing it wasn’t as bad, but I don’t know anyone my age that doesn’t personally know at least one kid who died, drowning, hit by cars etc
By the time I finished high school I knew 4.

 

[Boardwalk Jedi]

Big changes in the world over my lifetime in no particular order:

Internet
Cell Phones
9/11
Career Women
Seat belts
AIDS
Day Care
Star Wars
African American President
Gay Rights Advancement
Female Presidential candidate
Self Gas Service

 

[scrhsa]

Just talking about a transistor radio, only AM and loving it! LOL. I used to lay in bed, trying to sleep and listening to it, having it lay on my ear so it was really low. Yes, the albums and stacking them, yikes the warning about dropping the needle! It’s all crazy but so convenient.

And there were only two really good stations on AM too. One country and one pop station

 

[RangerPooh]

This week I observed the evolution of phones from youths perspective. One girl in our Girl Scout troop (middle school girls) had a decorative purse that had a rotary dial on it, and an actual phone headset on top that plugged into her phone. The girls thought that it was a novelty. and asked about the rotary dial. Then at Cub Scouts last night the classroom that our first graders meet in is a pre-k daycare classroom, in the play area were multiple old cell phones. Old late 90s/early 00s clam flip phones. The kids asked how to open them and how we used them. For these 6/7 year olds all they have ever know are sleek iphones and the like.

 

[amcnj]

Big changes in the world over my lifetime in no particular order:

Internet
Cell Phones
9/11
Career Women
Seat belts
AIDS
Day Care
Star Wars
African American President
Gay Rights Advancement
Female Presidential candidate
Self Gas Service

Some of us are still waiting for self service gas stations!

 

[mrsv98]

When a topic like this comes up, I always think of my great-grandparents. I knew 6 of 8 and have fond memories. My Great Grandma from Norway traveled in carriages, it took her family 30 days to travel from their tiny farm in Norway to Chicago and lived to see men on the Moon!

For me, it has to be computers. I didn't touch one until college but we can't live without them now.

 

[lovesmurfs]

Another big change (still related to technology) is the ability to work from anywhere. In 2000 when I went back to work after my DD was born, I negotiated working flex time - 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at work, and the rest at home. I think our email address at work was an AOL one (lol!).

Now, if I work from home, I'm attached to our server -- I answer emails as though I was at work, and have access to all of the same files. I have my work calls forwarded to my cell phone through Skype for Business, and when I answer and call out, it's as though I'm using my work phone.

So for this 50-year old, it's a big deal. I remember being in college in the mid/late 80s and forcing the government agency I worked at during the summer to move their budget to Lotus 123. And when they got their first fax machine!

 

[RedAngie]

Some of us are still waiting for self service gas stations!

What?!!! You don't like being waited on at NJ gas stations???

 

[MamaBelle4]

Has the increase in gas prices been mentioned?

 

[mco65]

Graduated HS in 1985. I used to go to the corner store and get Pall Mall golds for my dad when I was 7-8. I don't think there was any age limit in the 1970s/80s.

I graduated a few years before you and i did the same thing.. but it wasn't Pall Malls.. i think it was Merit?? hard to remember..

 

[mco65]

Has the increase in gas prices been mentioned?

I don't think so but when i first started putting gas in cars, i never put more than $5. I would run inside, give the clerk a $5 and that got me through the week. It didn't fill my car up but it got me over halfway.. I can't remember the last time i went inside to pay for gas... what a pain that must have been. LOL... but not knowing any difference, it didn't bother me then.. boy it does now. IF i pull up to a pump that has a note, (Broke/pay inside)... i go to another store...

 

[Domo]

Possibly outside of my lifetime, but the birth of the NHS is a jewel in the UK's crown

 

[mi*vida*loca]

If I'm in Philadelphia and my gas light comes on or I'm almost on E I will wait until I get back into NJ to get gas. Spoiled Jersey girl here.

 

[MamaBelle4]

IF i pull up to a pump that has a note, (Broke/pay inside)... i go to another store.

Me too. I'm not unloading 5 kids to get $20 worth of gas. Moving on.

 

[RedAngie]

If I'm in Philadelphia and my gas light comes on or I'm almost on E I will wait until I get back into NJ to get gas. Spoiled Jersey girl here.

When I'm in NJ with about half a tank, I like to top off because someone will pump the gas for me.

 

[usnuzuloose]

Some of us are still waiting for self service gas stations!

You know don't be in a hurry for self serve, as least it is giving someone a job. I wish we still had people to do it as it is getting harder for me to do. I am not disabled so I get no help.

 

[usnuzuloose]

My greatest and best change came in the 90's and it was wonderful and I am so grateful for it everyday. And I am not allowed to say and what a shame.