I can't imagine being in high school and everything I wore or did would end up scrutinized on social media. Or getting dumped by a guy and half the school tweets about it. At the same time, it would've been fun to talk to your friends and stay in touch with your love interest all the time. Being able to share your opinions, jokes and style in a fun way. Do you think you would've enjoyed having instagram, twitter, facebook, etc while you were a teen?
I think we did fine with just a phone.....and an attached-to-the-wall land line at that. I could hardly wait to get home from school and call my friends to go over the fine points of the day (who wore what, who said what to who, who broke up, who made up, who were now a couple). Of course, we had all been together all day, but that phone time was crucial to our well-being. News traveled fast, even without twitter, Instagram, facebook.
@Bess Barber I doubt it, as I was very backward socially and had only a small close-knit circle of male friends who all played softball well. Russ could walk into a liquor store and buy with no difficulty, though he was 16 and I was 20! We had some wicked poker games in my folks' kitchen. They tolerated this in preference to me being "out on the street". Frank
I am thrilled that we had no such thing. In fact, I am glad we didn't even have television until I was in high school. I am happy to have real memories rather than virtual ones.
Things that teens take for granted today like cell phones and personal computers would have been unthinkable science fiction in my youth. Most of my social connections were made face-to-face, and there was but one phone in the house located in a central location where my mother monitored every call coming in or going out. Immediate gratification and 24/7 connectivity were not available then...
I feel the same way Ken does, although I was watching Lassie and other tv shows earlier than my high school days. Another thing, since my Junior High (7th/8th grade) and high school years (9 thru 12) were on a hog farm, I had chores to do when I got home from school. The word "phone", wasn't even in my vocabulary. Then again, that was "farm life" back then.
A forum is the only thing I've been interested in - even though I'm stuck at home, I'm not interested in other forms of social media
Where I grew up only a chosen few were lucky enough to have a landline. You couldn't apply for a phone but you were selected if authorities thought you were important enough to have your own telephone at home. Few were. Even in 1993 I still negotiated something as unimportant as the purchase of a new car with the car dealer calling from a public phone booth. The call took longer than expected, cost me a decent sum and the longer it took the more desperate I got because I was running out of coins...
I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the social aspect of the internet much, but I remember standing in a library in my twenties - no memory now of what I was trying to find out, but I remember thinking that somewhere nearby, somebody could tell me what I wanted to know. I also had a nice collection of quotation books and decided I didn't need them once the internet arrived. Now there's plenty of misquotes, omitting the name of who they're quoting or crediting someone else, if the person who originally said it has died. As a teen, I would have used Twitter. It's probably best it wasn't available to me back then. All my teachers liked me just fine.
Perhaps the ability to research the web instead of spending so many hours at the library might have been a nice advantage. I also used to type a lot and having a computer and a printer would have saved me a bundle in correct type and carbon paper. I can honestly say though that having the ability to join in on groups and such would have been completely lost on me because between school, work, study and what little sleep I got, my days were well covered. Even during vacation times, I still spent a lot of time at the library preparing for the next year and often worked more than one job.
I think "word" got around back then about as fast as it does now.....just not as wide-spread. You know what they say about teenage angst...…..you're at the football game, the team goes into a huddle and YOU JUST *KNOW* they're talking about that GIGANTIC zit on your chin. We didn't need social media back then to feel that everything we were sensitive about was THE top conversation at school.
I don't participate in social media now, and I probably wouldn't have done so then...I just don't know for sure. I DO love having access to all the information on the WWW now, however, and would have loved to have THAT at my fingertips in my teens.
Same here, Mary. Except my best friend lived next door, so we could just scurry back and forth to share our teenage angst. I spent more time sprawled across her bed with orange-juice cans in my hair listening to the AM radio station than on the phone.