"Go Watch Movies From The '70s And You'll Notice It": 19 Shocking Changes In Our Society That Only Older Generations Are Aware Of

Here's what people said has changed since the old days:

1. "Smell. Everything used to stink of tobacco smoke. Offices, homes, stores, and if you didn't like it, you were 'fussy' or 'pathetic' or 'weak.' Nowadays, everything stinks of fake perfume like Febreze. It's not any better, but at least (as far as we know) Febreze doesn't cause cancer."

—u/anonymous

2. "The idea of a telephone number being tied to a place, rather than a person. It used to be, 'Call the office, leave a message on the machine,' or 'call the break room, someone will answer.' Now it's mostly just 'call or text me,' and I'll get the message wherever I am."

—u/tommyjohnpauljones

3. "Phone booths. Those things used to have queues outside of them on a Saturday night when people were desperately making last-minute meetup changes. Now they lie abandoned and vandalized, a relic to a forgotten pre-mobile past."

—u/1234abcd56

4. "I used to always be planning my social calendar several days ahead. If I was meeting a friend or girlfriend, it always had to be at an appointed landmark, so you wouldn't miss each other. Everything now seems spur of the moment. It's a lot more flaky, with people deciding in the moment what's their best option for a good time."

—u/anonymous

5. "Nobody I know ever mentions getting lost anymore. Even idiots that used to get lost every day. Having GPS on everyone's phone has made asking for directions a thing of the past in 99% of situations."

—u/anonymous

6. "Stuff is not all brown anymore. Holy crap, back in the 1970s, everything was earth tones: brown, yellow, orange. Cars, wood paneling in homes (oh god, the wood paneling), the shag carpets, clothes...it was all brown. Go watch movies or TV shows from the '70s and notice it all. I'm so happy to be living in the colorful world of today. (Yes, it started getting colorful in the '80s; it's still a change from a point in the past.)"

—u/ktappe

7. "In the USA now, there's much, much less litter. You can't imagine the 1960s. You'd eat a Big Mac then drop the Styrofoam on the ground."

—u/jrm2007

8. "Doctors used to boil needles and reuse them before we had disposables."

—u/iameeyorr

9. "People who didn't become adults until after 9/11 don't realize how nice flying used to be. No overcrowded planes, and you could roll up to the airport, like, 20 mins before a flight."

—u/Gehwartzen

10. "I used to be made fun of for playing video games when I was 15–16. Peers said I was too old for video games and used to laugh behind my back. Now, everyone of every age plays them."

—u/sardu1

11. "Single-income families. For those in the generation before mine, it was normal for a man's income to cover all of the costs of living for a family. For those in the generation after mine, it takes two incomes."

—u/Flagrante

12. "The swing in education. Back in the day, teachers could hit kids, and no one batted an eye (this is bad). Today, teachers are blamed for kids' misbehavior (this is also bad)."

—u/pointsouterrors

13. "I'm 53, and I'd say the lost art and discipline of writing letters and/or diaries. I feel pretty safe to say I will never be remembered for any email I've sent. It used to be that correspondence took time and effort and left a lasting memorial. If you have heard old letters read at funerals, you'll have a sense of the value the culture no longer captures."

—u/rickalto

14. "Career and job stability. The average person now works 12 to 15 jobs in their lifetime. It used to be nothing like that."

—u/Scrappy_Larue

15. "Paying a bill used to take a long time. You'd line up at the post office or call a number and read out your details. You'd try to save up as many bills as you could to pay at one time because the process was so tedious."

—u/dillonyousonofabitch

16. "Jobs existed. If you needed some extra cash, you could just get a temp job for a little while. If your current job annoyed you, you could just quit and go somewhere else. Not the end of the world if you lost your job."

—u/mikeymikeymikey1968

17. "People used to visit each other randomly and 'just drop by.' Now, there seems to be a lot less community, and people are less inclined to be social."

—u/anonymous

18. "You used to be able to greet people AT the terminal."

—u/anonymous

19. And finally, "It probably seems pretty obvious on the surface, but attire has drastically changed. Hear me out, though. I think that the way society views fashion, clothing, and attire in a general attitude is completely alien to the world I grew up in. For starters, there seems to be a bigger focus on 'aesthetics before utility.' I cannot count the number of times I've seen people roaming around in tight skinny jeans that have pockets smaller than a Roman dagger. It's wild."

—u/anonymous

Comments have been edited for length and/or clarity. 

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