I'm glad I grew up in a less advanced technology generation.

I was born in ‘89 and have similar feeling to you. Regarding P, I feel sorry for young people who have had hardcore material blasted into their brains from an early age. I didn’t get on P site until I was about 15.
There doesn’t seem to be the same rites of passage for people born in the internet age. I remember when I first started to M that I would stay up late to watch films on the off chance there was some action. Then I started to buy lads mags and papers, curating a collection of pictures of women. Then I discovered soft core adult channels on the TV, all well before I saw P. And when I did discover P, it was a video tape in my parents bedroom! I reckon it must be harder do away with P if you’re more accustomed to using the internet frequently.

 

'89, too. My second year of college only 1 girl owned an iPhone in our group. I remember getting lost in Austin because the map app was still so poorly designed, and saying "Let's just cut through the campus!" She seemed so distracted just wandering next to all of us staring at her screen endlessly.

I posted about this in another thread, but I always watched porn when I had the chance, but the "chance" was always slim. We had to go to the kids' homes whose alcoholic parents didn't give a fuck about what we watched on TV or the internet, because every home had a shared computer until we were 15ish.

The front page on a pornsite was lesbian, girls masturbating, or girls having vaginal sex. This was most "fetishes" too-- you just searched by hair and skin color, as far as I'm concerned. Hentai was still weird and by no means mainstream. On Pornhub, the front page would have been shocking.

Texting was a hassle.

 

Yeah instant gratification is a killer. I used to buy CDs and got to know albums well from repeated listening. If you invest in something like a CD as a kid, you listened to it repeatedly. Now, I find that I don't listen to new albums enough to love them as there is always another one waiting on Spotify. Obviously streaming is far better than carring a walkman, but you do loose a lot with the easy access.

Waiting up at night was so exciting. Haha, you had to be patient and struggle through many a false dawn before you were rewarded. Better life lessons back then!

 

Yeah slim chances felt like a God given treat. When it's available at any time, it's like a curse. I don't even think I went on sites that often. Mostly, my friend would just send me videos he'd downloaded off Limewire via MSN chat haha

 

Yeah man, fellow 91 here too. It was a different time, I can't imagine growing up with what's available now. For crying out loud, VR porn is a thing. Imagine a teenager dealing with that level of dopamine high.

 

It's funny I was born in that awkward period inbetween.

I was born on the ass end of the 20th century. I have the right to claim to be a "90s kid", yet I never lived it (So I'll proclaim I was a 90s baby). My childhood was an awkward fusion of both the anologue, digital, and whatever the hell this age is. I remember watching VHS tapes, and seeing my parents use payphones. I remember flip phones and having one for emergencies when I was 9.

I remember throwing rocks at my friends, drinking from hoses, and wondering what was beyond my suburbs. I was never dregged by adults about spending too much time on my phone, because I didn't have one. I had a Gamecube, and my dad thought that was destroying my youth, and I remember learning the gamer word in a 360 MW2 lobby when I was 11. What a time to be alive. I even remember my dad telling me not to visit pornsites cause they gave viruses, my dad is a very intelligent man and I know now he wasn't talking about computer viruses. He could've been talking about both.

When I hit middle school the new world arrived and the early 2000s faded away. My mom got the 4s, and I thought Siri was out of the world, I remember watching Clone Wars and wishing I lived in a futuristic society with automatic doors in our housese, now I don't know if I feel that way anymore...

High was that rapid advancement of technology, We were still experiencing the shell shock of siri, and by the end of high school deep learning was common knowledge.

I remember when I was 12 and we read in article in school about a mars trip taking place in 2032, I think that's gonna happen this decade.

What a time, but I miss the simpler times. It's weird.

 

Yeah, but didn't internet begin in '95 and all the free porn access thereafter. I grew up in the 70s/80s. While I saw only a few magazines, I was relatively free of P until age 21 when I first dared to buy my own mags and videos. I think growing up in childhood and teen years on a constant free diet of internet porn, as so easily available today, would have scarred me forever in very dark ways. I was an adult when I discovered the rest.

 

Fellow millenial. I concur with you. I actually miss the early days (for me) of the internet. You know, AOL, MSN Messenger, the excitement of a friend logging in, chain e-mails (as much as I hated them back then), etc. But more than that, it was the time spent outside with friends doing whatever.

 

I second that, read Jacques Ellul and Ted Kaczynski's manifesto.