The Student Room Group

Older TSRians, what's changed since you were a teen?

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Original post by LavenderBlueSky88
People smoking in nightclubs... And just generally smoking everywhere...


I remember my hair stinking of smoke after a night out.

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I'm 21. I don't like how social networks seem to dominate every single aspect of our lives now; when I was a teenager first of all I had Piczo, then used MSN and Bebo simultaneously. Bebo wasn't anywhere near as intrusive as Facebook and Twitter are now and on MSN you could choose to just talk to your friends without being tagged in comments/statuses or having to post constantly about what you're doing at this moment or every single thought that pops into your head in order to seem more 'interesting.' :rolleyes: It's also much harder when you fall out with your friends or end your relationship that it will inevitably be instantly broadcast on Facebook/Twitter with changing your status to 'single' or your former mates either making indirect statuses or tweets about you or starting a full blown public facebook/twitter argument for the rest of your 700 'friends' to instantly see. I feel sorry for today's kids because of this, it's much harder to tackle bullying in school and this new 'social openness' only encourages more outlets for bullying and harassment to take place. My old secondary school had a recent incident where a student started an anonymous 'school gossip' Twitter account where my younger sister became one of the victims of exaggerated untrue gossip being posted on the Twitter account like '(insert name here) had sex with 30 boys last week!' and the police got involved when loads of angry parents complained about it because it caused bullying. Nothing goes un noticed in today's culture. In the good old MSN and Bebo days all that mattered was making sure your MSN status included all your BFFs ...and if someone fell out with you you removed them from your status ha ha people used to get really upset about it. Oh and taking all those random quizzes on Bebo like 'what Disney princess are you?' and having music videos and songs on your Bebo profile to reflect your personality like The Pussycat Dolls and Fergie. Also making sure your font on MSN was as pink and girly as possible and that you could display whatever song you were currently listening to in your status as well, god help you if you wanted a cheeky listen of the Teletubbies theme tune or something and forgot you had your settings set to display your song in your status:colondollar:.

Downoading and using hundreds of animated emojis on MSN

The school canteen was also junk food central

Buying physical CD's was still very common when I was a teenager (god, I feel old now) and putting the songs on your IPod, a pink one with no coloured screen. Getting the Motorola Razor phone in year 7 and feeling like the coolest kid on earth. Before that I was only addicted to playing Snake on my dad's old mobile phone ...dad: I need my phone back now silverlining!_x me: But I've just reached Level 20 come on! ah memories. After the Razr broke :frown: I then got myself a flip phone, tiny and pink with stick on diamonds on the front :colondollar: and then at the end of secondary school in Year 11 (only 5 years ago) I went into my brief Blackberry phase. BBM was all the rage back then and so was bluetoothing songs to your mates like Keri Hilson and Lady Gaga's Poker Face muh muh muh muuuuuuuuh. Secondary school was exactly 5-10 years ago for me haha. But compared to now even 5 years ago things were different music and fashion wise.

Music: when I first started secondary school and my early teenage years (age 12-14) it was all about hip hop crunk music like Usher's Confessions, grime, pop punk or girly RnB pop like Girls Aloud and Sugababes. Then it moved towards the indie/rock route with everyone seeming to have an 'emo' phase around 2007 and loving bands like My Chemical Romance, my best friend was briefly into Tokio Hotel when she was previously the biggest RnB fan ever
:lolwut:.

And then everyone started liking artists like Soulja Boy, Chipmunk, there was Rihanna's Umbrella everywhere, Beyonce's Single Ladies, Lady Gaga's The Fame was massive, Kanye West's Stronger starting the visor glasses trend where at one time about 6-7 years ago you could buy coloured plastic visor glasses with no frame for like 50p in Primark:dance:

Fashion; in my secondary school years I went from flared jeans, pigtails, hoop earrings and wearing velvet type flared tracksuit bottoms and trainers casually along with tops with a cat on the front wearing a rhinestone crown, to tunics over leggings, plastic neon coloured beaded necklaces from Primark and waist belts with layered hair and a side fringe. Primark was also much cheaper than it is now, you could walk out of there with bagfuls of clothes for £20. Come to think of it, everything was cheaper.

Wow, I feel old now. Sometimes even 5 years doesn't seem like long ago and then it hits you you're 21 and about to complete your final year at university. Bang.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by LavenderBlueSky88
People smoking in nightclubs... And just generally smoking everywhere...


I was working in a nightclub when the smoking ban came in. It was only then did we realise what a good job the smoke did of masking the smell of urine and stale lager.
Byker Grove and Grange Hill. What do teenagers watch these days?
Original post by Quantex
I was working in a nightclub when the smoking ban came in. It was only then did we realise what a good job the smoke did of masking the smell of urine and stale lager.


I know, I remember the first time I went clubbing after the ban and was just like "I CAN SMELL EVERYTHING!!" D: D: D:
Original post by LavenderBlueSky88
I was thinking just how much teenage life has changed since I was 15/16 (a decade ago). Although a lot had remained the same.

My life after school revolved around MSN and possibly bebo, for which me and my brother had a rota of an hour each a night. Sometimes if I was especially bored I'd venture into habbo hotel.
This was about the same for me.

I used to download music on limewire or winmx
Most of my music was on vinyl.

I used to make mix CDs with said mp3 files and listen to them on my portable CD player
I recorded songs I liked from my records onto tape so I could listen to them on my Walkman.

Kids used to go to the park to drink cider (I don't see this anymore, though I'm sure it still happens)
They still do that a little where I'm from.

Massive groups of 'emos' and 'goths' used to hang around outside virgin records.
HMV.

I used to tape music videos off the tele so I could watch them again. Because I didn't know what YouTube was.
I was never much into music videos but we still have a pile of home-recorded VHS tapes at home. Still got a BetaMax deck somewhere too.

Having a phone with a polyphonic ringtone or even a coloured screen meant you had hit the big time.
My first phone predated GSM.

You couldn't have proper conversations via text, because u had 2 tlk lyk dis and it took about 15 minutes to type.
I didn't have any friends to text :emo:

Sending a picture message took about half an hour, and used up all your credit.

Going to the 'under 18s' night at oceana (or whatever it was called before) was the highlight of the term. And drinking red bull there meant you were very sophisticated.

Every single girl curled her hair with angel curling tongs
I'm younger than you as well...
Original post by LavenderBlueSky88
People smoking in nightclubs... And just generally smoking everywhere...

One thing I do not miss is getting up for school, after a night out and having a shower. The morning after + the smell of smoke coming off of your skin and out of your hair was vom inducing.
Reply 107
Avatar for MsSnape
MsSnape
I love this thread, every time I read it I think of other things.
You wore headphones not earphones and they weren't anything like skull candy or beats.
Floppy disks were used to save things or play games from (I'm old enough that I remember loading games from cassette tapes).
TV was all analogue (4 channels) and sky dishes were huge.
Perms and shoulder pads being huge as well.
Harry potter taking over (yes I bought some of the books at midnight).
Buffy the vampire slayer on at 6:45 on bbc 2.
Byker (I remember the paintball episode where PJ became blind) and Grange Hill. Plane crashes on Emmerdale (TV was scary).
Did anyone else use a clothes iron to straighten their hair?
Reply 109
Avatar for NJA
NJA
20
Original post by silverlining_x
...

Buying physical CD's was still very common when I was a teenager ...

Fashion; ....
If you ever go to a 90s party, here's an idea.
- when you could only text and call on a phone
- floppy disks
- pay as you go phones
- Snake!
- making mix CDs

I remember before the smoking ban coming in, going to a gig where it was requested you didn't smoke; as it affects the singers vocals.
*I buy MP3s and CDs instead of doing mix-tapes off the top 40 on radio 1.

*I have an MP3-player, not a knock-off Walkman that buzzes and goes dead if I walk too fast.

*I have not had to touch a :rant: 3½-inch floppy disk for years. Thank goodness. They always got bent in my bag and rendered unusable. If I had an intact, functioning one, it would claim there wasn't enough space to save my coursework.

*bolt.com died.

*Tutors didn't assume you had internet access at home

*I used to borrow actual books, loads of them, when I had to research for an essay/coursework.
Original post by Clip
I really wanted to post "Yeah, but we had......" but I'm struggling to think of anything.

Star Bars?
KP Wickers?

Brookside?

Hmm, not much of a comeback, is it?

"Yeah, well... we had Brookside. So there!"

Just doesn't have a ring to it.
Back in my day 10 year olds did not go around picking fights on 18 year old prefects
I remember having portable CD players when I was a kid in the early 2000s.

We only had 5 channels on the TV until around 2007 I think.

Not sure if I've posted these before.


Original post by Octopus_Garden

Tutors didn't assume you had internet access at home


A few times in secondary school I struggled with homework that involved computers because until second year of GCSEs I didn't have a working computer. We bought a new laptop just before Christmas 2011 and it seemed revolutionary.
Reply 115
Avatar for Reue
Reue
20
noone had a mobile phone

noone had the Internet

noone had channel 5

everyone panicked about the millennium bug
I remember having to buy a CD single if I wanted to see the music video without waiting for it to be shown on TV.
video games!
and
katz.cd
Reply 118
Avatar for kpwxx
kpwxx
20
Original post by LavenderBlueSky88
.



Lots of these things resonate with me! I am 24 in a few days.

We spent our evenings talking on MSN, and editing our myspace profiles. Also piczo, beebo and making our own sites on freewebs. We also went on habbo and spent ages trying to manoeuvre those 'mazes' people would make with furniture.

My friends used limewire and went to those under 18 club nights! I remember everyone talking about them, they were at 'Liquid' in my area.

We still used the house phone for most phone conversations, since calling on a mobile was so expensive. I knew my closest friend's numbers by heart. If you didn't have much credit and were out you'd 'prank' someone to get them to ring you back.

Our school was divided in to 'Emos' and 'Chavs'. There was longstanding rivalry, and once the 'Chavs' came to the 'Emos' area at lunch and there was a stand off.

In year 7 my friend had a colour screen on his phone with a picture of a tropical island for the background. I was amazed. I'd recently got a Nokia with snake, after someone dropped my old phone which didn't have texting as a function in the sink.

People hired out local social clubs etc for birthday parties where we'd dance to action songs like the Cha Cha slide and The Ketchup Song. Nowadays people seem to just go out instead?

People would just wander round town. After school every day we'd go to the park on the way home and just talk and hang about for ages. It would be a couple of hours before we actually went home. Again, now people seem to rush home? Or maybe we were just weird at the time lol.


Also people seem to go a bit further from home now. For example, we used to mainly be at each others houses or local parks etc, whereas now people where I'm from often travel to the nearest city, the beach etc.

xxx

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