Published on 12, July, 2020
I've borrowed this question from something intimated in another thread.
Do you think life has improved for you as you have grown older?
Is it because society has changed or you/your life have changed or a combination?
There was a comparison in another thread with 1980.
I realise some of the readers here won't even have been born then!
I could write a long list of ways in which my life has improved since 1980, both on a personal level and on a 'society' level.
Where 'society' is concerned, the invention of the internet has made me much less isolated, much more knowledgeable, much more in control of my health and not at the mercy of the NHS.
I wouldn't know about my autism and many other things without it.
Also, mobile phones/texting and email mean that I no longer have to make phone calls (including from phone boxes!).
I could go on but I might even bore myself.
There is really very little I miss about 1980, except perhaps a quieter pace of life in general.
It's an interesting question and we all have a past, no matter how far back it goes.
How is it for you.
Better or worse?
It's an interesting question. I wouldn't have known I had autism without the internet. Neither would I have been on here and found people who thought and did things like me which I gave found reassuring. It is useful to look things up quickly although there is something special about looking up things in books and more relaxing to read a story in a book.
However I find many things more complicated with technology, for example washing machines and cookers where you just turned knobs and couldn't operate by accidentally leaning on them. Life often feels today like it needs a lot more planning or things working out.
I used to entertain myself a lot with craft projects, but I wonder how my son who has ADHD as well as autism would have managed without technology.
In 1980 there were not so many things to spend money on that were essential like the internet and mobile phones, so would people be better off? Also I think people now rely a lot more on credit. I believe food was quite expensive then compared to wages but people had less to spend money on. What would the current cost of living crisis have looked like then? Just before then we had periods of shortages and strikes too and planned power cuts. However because of so many things relying on electricity today power cuts are not so straight forward.
There were also things in those days which were not investigated which have since come to light.
So in conclusion, life then was simpler and more straight forward which I like, but there are things to be thankful for today.