Do you ever look back on your own childhood and marvel over how the world has changes since then? Technology has evolved so much since in the last few decades that many of the things we took for granted when we were children either no longer exist or can be hard to even explain to our own children.

Here are some great examples shared by Reddit users this week of things that were popular when we were kids, that will seem completely alien to our offspring!

Privacy

The phone book.

You think kids today, with all the scams and social avoidance, would even believe:

There was a book with the phone number and address of everyone, and you could call and we’d just pick up without knowing who it was. (Goldenrule-er)

The Discovery Store

Nature stores used to be all the rage.

Get lured in by a clerk holding a gopher puppet. Stay to squish squishy balls full of glitter. Leave because you can’t afford a $100 rain stick. (Dovaldo83)

Television Viewing

Watching TV as a family. Most people I knew just had one tv and much fewer choices of what to watch. It was a lot of negotiations. (k1wyif)

I would try and be so quiet and small at my bedtime and hope I could get away with watching the next show. My mother loved watching Merv Griffin. That was my goal. (PrincessPindy)

The fact that TV wasn’t on 24/7 (qsk8r)

The test pattern! (Postulative)

Nothing was worse than being sick at night  and having the tv channel time to colourful static while you were trying to watch it. (AiutumnFalls89)

Running to the bathroom between commercial breaks and hearing your friend yell from the living room “It’s back on!!!”
And then having to do parkour movies over the back of the couch. (Quidaria)

Saturday morning cartoons (spotolux)

CDs

Using CDs and having a binder full of them for music. It was a collection and a badge of honor. (AriaMorello)

Also surprising how a collection of very small, very light plastic discs can somehow weigh a ton. (dave_gregory42)

I had the CD sleeve for the car that mounted on the visor that holds several CDs. Every once in a while when rounding a tight corner several CDs would go flying out. (cryogenisis)

Minors Buying Cigarettes

“Take this note to the store and get me a pack of cigarettes” (Timely_Future1994)

I think I was around 7 (1987-ish) the first time my friend and I walked up to the gas station to get her mom a pack of smokes. We had to crawl through a creek, and up a hill to do so to avoid the road because we weren’t allowed to walk in the road. Guy just sold them to us no problem. (morganalefaye125)

Free Range Childhood

Playing in the great outdoors. Disappearing for hours on end with your friends whilst the parents didn’t know or care where you were. Happy days. (hetogoto)

I’m so happy I was a free range kid. The rule was come home when the streetlights turn on. (Skittilybop)

Exploring. As a kid we would just assemble with our bikes like the Avengers and just explore, whether it be trails in the woods, abandoned places to snoop around in, whatever really. I think that’s how we learned “street smarts” now kids are so sheltered in place. (notoriousjb87)

Yeah, I grew up in a small town in the UK and that was basically how we grew up. Bulding dens in scrappy bits of woods or by the river bank, building fires, playing with knives, making rope swings, having running battles with other groups of kids over some imagined claim over territory.

During school holidays, our parents would kick us out of the house when they went to work. “Go to your nanas for dinner or if it rains, but don’t bother her.” That’s probably counted as neglect these days, but it felt like freedom at the time. Learnt a lot about life and the world because of it. (Gibbonici)

Research

Encyclopedias (tommyc463)

Still have one at my mom’s house. I literally read it to pieces when I was younger, and I could spend hours going down endless rabbit holes. It’s horribly outdated by now, but still fun to browse through it whenever I visit my mom. (Tjodleik)

Social Media

MySpace. Parents and grandparents never took to it and we were safe. (Final-Association 422)

Phones

The thrill of coming home and seeing the message light blinking on the answering machine. (encomlab)

Talked on the phone only within a three-foot radius of the spot in the wall where it needed to be plugged in, because that’s all the further the cord would stretch. (dollykittycutie)

Growing up with my grandfather and great-grandfather, we had a wall-mounted rotary. that cord was at least 8 feet long. pretty sure it was shorter originally, it had just stretched over the decades lol. my sister would talk on the phone for hours, and she was the one that learned it reached the toilet. (moron88)

What would you add to the list?