Life before smartphones?

Was the world really a better place before smartphones were a thing? Were people actually different before smartphones as some claim? Was interaction with others easier and were people less NPC's than they are now? Whenever I observe gen z with older generations they act like social retards/autists in comparison, is this because of smartphones?

Every time I go outside I see kids staring at their demon rectangles watching brainrot short videos or using social media like instagram (why are children allowed on that filth) and it's starting to piss me off and makes me want to die.

I find myself getting depressed and very, very angry for a world that I don't even know actually existed or not. I hate living in a smartphone world. Please old anons, help me out here.

And if it was better, how do we go back? Is the only solution to limit the distribution of smartphones and placing severe limitations or outright getting rid of social media?

Smartphone is the mark of the devil

Biggest difference between 2008 and now is Jailbait was everywhere and hot.

people used to do the same shit we do with smartphones but with tvs instead.
People would stand and watch tv for hours on end just watching pure trash to pass the time.
Before that it was books, people would read pure smut and schlock just to pass the time.
People are definitely more socially distant now, but its more because 80 percent of people you meet and see on the street are mentally unwell and are on drugs.
You dont want to be a victim so you put your guard up.
In places where people are pre vetted to be there people are more open socially and more talkative.

young people would listen to their walkman, read books, play their gameboy/ds etc. a smartphone is just all those things in one

before smartphones there were actually different sub-cultures. not the zoomer/gen alpha mono-culture that says "crash out" and "lil bro" you had people who were actually not afraid to stand out & be themselves. it was amazing.

WOULD, all 6 girls.

I saw a girl using one of these recently.
It's just a piece of glass in the shape of a smartphone that zoomers are using sort of like a fidget spinner.
Some zoomers are trying to break their phone addictions, but the physical stimuli of staring at a brick in your hand and scrolling is too hard for them to break, so they hold one of pic related at home/in public.
It's pretty strange....but I know people who quit smoking by switching to toothpicks, so who knows?

They put the explanations of displays on QR codes to save on having guides. All the people in the painting would have looked at their smartphone all day so stop bitching k thks.

not the zoomer/gen alpha mono-culture that says "crash out" and "lil bro" you had people who were actually not afraid to stand out & be themselves.

It's depressing, I think the fact that everything can be easily recorded and uploaded to the internet with smartphones for millions to make fun of is a big reason why everyone looks, acts, talks, and dresses the same. Demonic robotic conformity

guys don't really use smartphones and even if they did who cares, all OP is bothered is (young) women using them. they will always find something to make them look busy, or at least they have done so a lot longer than smartphones have been around

Watching TV or even listening to the radio, were still social activities. There was usually one big TV in the living room and everyone gathered to watch it. If the show was stupid you could call that shit out and argue about it.

This cellphone timeline is bleak. Everyone just sitting there alone, together. It's no wonder everyone is depressed.

But you'd usually do that in front of the TV with the rest of the family. If you were with your friends you'd have a big ass boom box and maybe be playing Atari or Intellivision on the big living room TV. Again these were still social activities.

honestly bro I feel like now its my turn to be a cool guy. In the before time I would never be cool but now with everyone socially stunted and then extra socially retarded from covid lockdowns and everything. I can be the cool guy at the bar. At least for a couple years until I am too obviously an old boomer

i'm hoping for the

smartphones turn on people

timeline

kids used to have their own TV in their rooms, sometimes with a DVD player and cable and obviously games consoles, that was the point of a bedroom

time traveler comes from the past to the future

first he says

WHY THE FUCK IS EVERYONE LOOKING DOWN ALL THE TIME

Everything was the same but slower. Think about the difference between a large city and a small town. We are living the big city in the timeline, we used to be the small town.

As life goes on you care less and less about shit. Especially people, because most of them are soul less npcs. Be it with a smartphone, or reading the newspaper.

Was the world really a better place before smartphones were a thing?

Yeah

Were people actually different before smartphones as some claim?

Yeah

Was interaction with others easier and were people less NPC's than they are now?

Not really, you needed better social skills to come back from getting bullied or bantered to hell as it was even more ruthless back then. But you could also fight your way out of that one.

act like social retards/autists in comparison, is this because of smartphones?

There's more nowadays but they always existed, except now they can hide or shelter themselves in a phone. Back then they just stood silently and nervously

a world that I don't even know actually existed or not

Go travel to poor rural areas, some people still behave without smartphones

if it was better, how do we go back?

Societal collapse

This, also downright ceepee in many websites. Hebe/Jailbait can still be found in the eurosphere completely legal but it's old material.

Bad for your neck too. Do cervical extension, SCM, scalenes, upper trap stretches and chin tucks for neck pain.

That's true. They were usually tiny and shitty compared to the 1000 pound CRT hulk. And not every family could afford a room TV for all their kids but it still worked out for the best because you would go to your friends house to watch theirs or play Atari in their room. So it still turned into a social thing.

Before smartphones things were set in stone how life went

After smartphones
I think its off because its not fully understood how life is and will be with them so intertweened with life. Till its moredefined its not going to fill the same comfy as the defined life was before them.

I think about tv... because of tv there was huge racial issues when it was a new prevalent tech. Look at whats its done to this country, upending racial heirarchy cus tv makes it look really sleazy to poster on people.

Reagan came along and put things back in order ...maybe trump will do the same. Who knows

My biggest ick of smartphones is you can gentrify a community on your phone from your miami yacht dock. Atleast before you had local realtors that would prevent that from happening. Now its a done deal by pushing a button on a screen on a device that fits into a pocket

No it's not.
Game boys and walkmen aren't access nodes to all tge filth and knowledge of the world. They didn't taylor the c90 or games cartridge to sell specific items to you and they didn't collect personalised economic data

>Reagan came along and put things back in order ...maybe trump will do the same. Who knows

In order to save money, Reagan changed the law concerning school lunches to declare ketchup was a vegetable. That means instead of giving kids corn or peas for lunch, they could give you a ketchup packet. ONE FUCKING KETCHUP PACKET! I have a very different view of Reagan because that was pure fucking bullshit that suddenly I was hungry an hour after lunch. I liked vegetables and I'd eat the other kids peas or corn. Well ketchup packets are not the same fucking thing. So fuck Reagan for making me hungry at lunch as a kid.

The skank i worked with in 2005 would text all the time on here crappy keyboard slide out phone. We would go out to the bars. A lot of fun. Smoking was still allowed in all the bars.

Well reagan forced crack on nigs and aids on fags.

Sorry about the ketchup though...

living in the future sucks

Two posts by Israelis

I dunno i kinda like my algorithm.

Lots of prank calling in the early/mid 90s using *67. The shit we would tell people. It was so much fun. Just stay over at friend's house and stay up all night.

smartphones are literally demon
why do you think theyre giving them for free with a contract?

they are out in droves tonight

Phone bad

When did this place turn into Facebook?

I'm 27 and I remember a time before smartphones. I didn't have a smartphone until I was halfway through high school. How young are some of you faggots?

Fine. Social Media is the real problem but the phone makes it available at all times everywhere, forever. At least prior to 2008 you needed to be at a desktop for the most part.

people born in 2007 can post here now

it's not the phone that is the issue it's the internet.
turn off the internet and all those zombies wake up.
ask any of them what they use the internet for and their answers will fall into 4 categories shopping, entertainment, socialization and information.
remove entertainment and socialization, for them to get those things somewhere else, and the world will go back to normal.
the only way to undig that hole is to abandon public internet and move to a curated network.

boomer thread

Kys

Every time I go outside I see kids staring at their demon rectangles watching brainrot short videos or using social media like instagram (why are children allowed on that filth) and it's starting to piss me off and makes me want to die.

Join the Amish

I'm surprised cable TV still exists

I guess some things just hang on, like land lines.

Shiiiieeet.

Traveling before mobile phones were common and illegal aliens infested every corner of this country including the middle of deserts. Harder to get a hundred or so miles from anyone else now.

Sounds boring.

bedroom of a kid from 1993

nigger im 40 and did 2 tours in iraq shooting hajis when you wee in diapers

literally when i was in fallujah. unfucking belivable that shit feels like yesterday listening to the hiss of incoming rounds and my gunner on the 40 sending HE out CHONK CHONK CHONK CHONK CHONK ...... BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM. meanwhile you little bitches were sperm finding an egg in some drunk slut. fuck time i wish it would slow the fuck down

thats not true at all. maybe if you were a spoiled brat or had low class parents. most normal kids were forbidden from getting a tv in their own room and their tv usage was heavily controlled and access based on if homework and chores were done

shootin em by day, buyin bootleg DVDs for a dollar on the way back into the FOB by evening. also pack of cigs for a buck, not those nasty dune coon local ones that tasted like ash tray

t. your age, same place

Was the world really a better place before smartphones were a thing?

Yes

And if it was better, how do we go back?

We dont, life is suffering

Everyone was outside at night before the internet, either looking for chicks, cruising, or just trying to get lit with your friends and chill for the night, unless you were a weirdo. Now only the weirdos are running the streets at night, so theres a big difference.

nigger we're more than halfway dead lul

those days of super nintendo and parents making dinner are fucking doneskis. they've been gone as hell for decades. hanging out with your bros after last period in high school, lel

maybe we get to fight one last time after getting out of that shitty catbox. murdering commies frauding their way into office by ballotbox stuffing

where are we going now? fuckit man, who cares. surf that kali yuga.

Were people actually different before smartphones as some claim?

Girls were still texting all day for a few years before that. Smartphones made the internet shit.

Do you really think kids in 1985 gave a shit about that painting lol

Probably, how many living humans would right now be willing to smash their smartphone for no reason and live the rest of their life without getting a new one? Everyone seems to think their entire life is linked to their phone.

Good news, it is about to suck a whole lot more once God removes love from being an emotion a person can feel. Do not be left behind after the rapture.

what if radio pollution == climate change?

People are too connected today, too fucking much.
You know people walk with these 24/7 so if you talk to somebody and they dont answer you know they're ignoring you. Whereas before there could be a million reason they cant talk, they had to be at home to answer phone, and even then you would hang out asap not talk over distance like a retard. Now people dont even chat or call they just send audios which is a retarded form of communication, and everyone is talking to their phone like a fucking clown sending these long ass audios telling shit in like structured way and then the answers are also structured, idk its robotic as fuck im getting tired of this shit

It's depressing, I think the fact that everything can be easily recorded and uploaded to the internet with smartphones for millions to make fun of is a big reason why everyone looks, acts, talks, and dresses the same. Demonic robotic conformity

Thats a hot take anon, and I think you're right.

As a GenXfag, I was flexing with picrel in 1994.

go back a few years and it will be arcade/bowling/skating.
go back a few years and it will be disco/drugs
go back a few years and it will be dying in world war 1 and 2
go back a few years and it will be tea/tulips
go back a few years and it will be joining the crusades
go back a few years and it will be watching the coliseum

personally i like watching shit on my phone compared to all of those, well maybe the golden age of arcades is nice but that would mean shitty dial up internet.

I went over to my dad's for Easter and he was watching a biopic on the guy who invented canned soup.

Grim

Honestly the thing I hate most about smartphones is the fact they have completely ruined women.

Every girl I meet doesn't want to watch movies, play videogames, read books, go for a walk in the park, go bicycling, fucking anything except watch 1 minute tiktok clips and animal memes on their fucking phone. It's not a big deal to like those things but it's the only thing they like. They have no attention span for anything longer than 60 seconds.
Old women aren't like this.

This has made dating impossible, not to mention the other horrible aspects of phones like only fans and basically every girl being a prostitute now.

A lot of this probably applies to guys too I don't know

In order to save money, Reagan changed the law concerning school lunches to declare ketchup was a vegetable. That means instead of giving kids corn or peas for lunch, they could give you a ketchup packet. ONE FUCKING KETCHUP PACKET! I have a very different view of Reagan because that was pure fucking bullshit that suddenly I was hungry an hour after lunch. I liked vegetables and I'd eat the other kids peas or corn. Well ketchup packets are not the same fucking thing. So fuck Reagan for making me hungry at lunch as a kid.

Reagan was a globalist cunt. He turned California from red to blue with a stroke of his pen, and never forget he was instrumental in closing up insane asylums which we clearly need now more than ever.

depressing as fuck how fast life is

It's hard to me to tell the difference of growing up in a smartphone vs non-smartphone world.

Everyone had more time. Time for hobbies, hanging out, studying. Yes, we played videogames and spent a lot of time glaring at the tv- but watched actual movies, dragged the family tv to our friends place just to play Halo 2v2 irl

there was more room for thinking. Waiting for the bus was boring, so people either went about their thoughts or talked to each other

When the Tamagotchi came out, there was a hysteric discussion, society really believed they would make kids dumb and they'd only stare at that little screen forever. Nowadays we let children consume brainrot, porn, real live gore 24/7. Its a a crime

One would think all the info and input a smartphone provides would lead many different youth cultures. But I have the feeling all kids look and think the same. We hat skaters, goths, metalheads, and a billion more and in between

People saw each other. People nowadays just walk past each other, no one even looks someone else in the eyes. If you still try, or even talk to someone, you're a weirdo nowadays. It's really sad

I'm sorry you had to grow up like this, anon. I hope Steve Jobs burns in eternal hellfire

it bleeds over to men big time, since men want to get laid they appeal to women, and they can see what women like too (everything is online), so they try to suit that stereotype and you get the universal broccoli zoomer as a result

Personally I'm in my mid 30s and feel like only now do I finally have my life in order but I took too long to get to this point and the world ended when I wasn't looking. Now I'm too old to do the things I really wanted like own a home, have a wife and kids. Everyone in my family dies at 60 so I'm already out of time.
Not sure what to do with all the money I have in the bank when I die. Guess I'll put it in a chest and bury it in the woods to become a local legend

I grew up with Smartphones and i hate it I hate it everyday more and more people are just getting dumber and dumber humans have nothing else to do it seems

around 2000ish that Erfurt guy was a pretty cool dude and not afraid of anything

just sayin

IT all went downhill from 2010 when smartphones were becoming wide spread. Even flip phones made shit worse.
ICQ and MSN were peak back in the day. You could talk to friends free of charge but nobody wondered around like zombies.
I stopped using smartphones except for calling and GPS and everyone should try this for at least a week. It's mind boggling how addicted everyone is.

i went to visit my sister the other day who lives 200km away. i don't do any googleshit or smartphone maps anything. it was about 21.00 hrs and i knew shed be asleep and i hadn't eaten. the only thing i use is the factory nav to her house on my Audi because i get lost in that area easily, lots of streets

so i just drove around until i saw something open that looked tasty enough. that's literally how it was done before technology became a fucking crutch for humanity, along with these ratings

part of life is spontaneous adventure and you are all being robbed of it using this trash. try for a week not to use any of it. youre also denying this asshole tech companies from cataloging and selling your personal life

>Phone bad

yes really
if you cant see this you are part of the problem

I was born in 1972, ask me anything bros. I can tell you how it was when life was actually lived.

No, life was better without a fentanyl epidemic.

People were still stupid but you weren't expected to have social media and care about so much useless shit. You could ignore people and go read books on your own like you can now but you didn't have everyone screaming at you that you didn't reply to their bullshit in the first 10 minutes.

What's worse is people who now grow up with a smartphone since they're babies, that actually fucks up their thinking and attention span for life, sure people could waste time watching tv before but they still felt there was something outside the tv, they could spend the time away from tv to think and imagine things for themselves, now you have people who can't live without checking their phone while in traffic, in the bathroom etc. Add in AI and the human species is done, it's going to be Idiocracy + Wall-E.

Was the world really a better place before smartphones were a thing?

social media, specifically
and yes

82 here. It is shit and it has always been shit.

Blame technology for the downfall; not the anti-Whites in charge of your economy/nation.
Cold take, you Luddite Republican faggot.

the berlin wall?

It sounds like fun having to figure out how and where to go instead of having everything be automated for you...

It's not. Because if you can't figure it out, you're lost. And that's not fun.

oh adventure!

Sometimes you don't have time for adventure.

How is any of that a good thing?

It's not, but that's not the fault of the people going to the museums, they're forced to look at their phones for info on the exhibit.

People still chatting with people they know. No one ever chatted with strangers. In public people used mobile phones before smartphones, played simple games or sent sms. Before that - music players, tetris and tamagochi, before that - books, magazines, gazettes. I don't really see a problem. I see kids outside playing with other kids, but now they got phones to watch together funny or cool things and listen to music. And with a parent number on a fast dial.

Everything in society moved slower and everyone was disconnected most of the time. It was easier to accept that people would take days to react to something big or small instead of like today expecting literally the entire world to know and understand near instantly

In politics for example modern society that is driven in part by smartphones and fast information it has allowed for those who want people to ignore a political story to say it is old news even if the story just happened hours before. The speeding up of society because of the near instant information made available by smartphones allows for those political games to work. It also allows for spamming of propaganda by the same mechanism

Most of you goddamn niggers are too stupid to even understand and comprehend. That in part can also be blamed on the impact of smartphones on society

82 here. It is shit and it has always been shit.

I disagree man. Remember riding with your bros on your BMX? Running around the neighborhood until late at night. Hanging out at the mall, trying to meet up with girls. The bad ass cars you could get for a few hundred bucks? My first car was a 1972 Fiat Spyder that I bought for $500. All my redneck friends had Camaros, Mustangs, TransAms and the poor fag had the Chevette. You could have bought any one of those cars for less than $1000. Shit is moving too fast now, and its not just age. It feels like everything is always on fire but theres not really shit going on at all. And, the internet used to be fun.

the berlin wall?

Honestly, I wasn't even paying attention to that at the time. I was obviously aware, but really had no idea what it was about. I was in my 'must get pussy' phase so nothing else really mattered.

Graduated from highschool in 1984. Got my first cell phone in 1999. Life was better before smartphones for sure. Imagine going 33 years without a cell phone.

people were just glued to tv or cd players back then nothing was different

I see kids outside playing with other kids, but now they got phones to watch together funny or cool things and listen to music. And with a parent number on a fast dial.

Not here in America dear Russbro. Matter of fact, back last summer I was sitting on my porch smoking a cig and heard very loud screaming. My first thought was someone was getting murdered. After a minute I realized it was the sound of kids playing. It felt like something I hadn't heard in literally years. The streets of America have no children on them unless they're homeless or trying to break into your car/house.

Step 1: Destroy the Iphone.

npc's will refuse to use another smartphone and will go back to 00's nokia's and blackberrys.

I guess that is fair enough

Got my first cell phone in 1999. Life was better before smartphones for sure. Imagine going 33 years without a cell phone.

I got one around the same time. I felt like the coolest fucker in the world. Later on, I saw a dude in a Pinto talking on one and I knew things were about to get bad.

those girls should be breeding, those paintings were made for adult men breeding them girls to understand
it's not too difficult

You tell me OP.

Also fun thing, I was a turbo autist in school and was actually mocked by class bullies for using the internet (and sometimes skipping school) at home. Nowadays... yeah.

Was the world really a better place before smartphones were a thing?

Yes. By a large margin. Back then, and even into the early days of the internet, you had to *gasp* move about in public and talk to people as humans are supposed to do. If you saw a girl you wanted to chat up, that's exactly what you did and was completely socially acceptable. Back then fortune favored the bold and the Chads. I remember going to the mall to hang out in the food court arcade and I never went without a nice pen, in case I had to jot some phone numbers to contact later for sexo. Pagers were also much better than cell phones. You werw still reachable but you got back to people on your own terms, provided there was a phone close by. You had to be able to navigate and do everything a phone does today on your own. This honed critical thinking and memory skills. Don't get me wrong, for the most part we are all slaves to this disgusting broken system but back then, slaves had it so much better. Pity kids these days will never know, because they are quite literally born into this bondage.

Those students are following a digital your that gives additional information about the art they're in the room with.This is part of a school trip.
Terrible example

What you said is very profound. These phones will evolve into the mark eventually, and you won't be able to participate in the economy (buying and selling) without it. It's all coming together

Pity kids these days will never know, because they are quite literally born into this bondage.

Its grim, bro.

Watching TV

still social activities

I'm sorry but no it isn't, you fucking retard

posting on fagbook and twitter are ten thousand times more social than watching TV every day for 6+ hours like boomer do

children staring at their phones for "information" about a painting that is right in front of them is good, actually

There should be a tour guide anyway.

That shift to pure sedated cattle behavior in your webm is terrifying.

That's a playground in a local park, it's full of kids all the time. When it's not cold of course, so like 4 months a year.

I hate you fake "veterans" making up stories. Have you even ever held a gun in your hands in real life?

That's a playground in a local park, it's full of kids all the time. When it's not cold of course, so like 4 months a year.

Nice to see anon. I guess what I meant is we just don't see kids running the neighborhood like they used to. Of course, I live in a reasonably white area so maybe all the kids just grew up and moved away.

Maybe you need parks?

Maybe you need parks?

Yeah, theres a small one down the road actually, kids do go there but its not the same as having a bunch of them running around and having a good time. Strangely enough, we had some black guy that was riding a bicycle around the main street for a month or two back in the summer. He appeared homeless, or at least a bit mentally off. He overdosed in the bathroom and died at the kid park. Some lucky kid found the corpse, kind of ruined the park for a while.

but its not the same as having a bunch of them running around and having a good time

And that I find weird in the first place, because it sounds boring. Kids love to climb and explore. When I was a kid, there was an abandoned construction site, everyone climbed concrete ruins with rusted spikes poking out of them. I almost died multiple times. That was fun. That's why park with a lot of shit to entertain kids makes sense and running around neighbourhood not so much.
Niggers should not be allowed to live around normal people, though.

Niggers should not be allowed to live around normal people, though.

I'm in the south, we're ass deep in niggers

Back in the 80s and 90s life was more serendipitous and exciting generally because you had no crutch. You had to interact more with others because you needed them more. Even for simple things like finding a good restaurant. Immediate information didn't really exist, outside of libraries. You couldn't just look up a fact or a review or a picture of something. You had to figure it out, often with the help and advice of others.
If you were going somewhere, you couldn't count on there being a phone there. If there was, it might be broken and of course you needed to have enough change. It was normal to carry some quarters for payphones. Also, if you called someone they might not answer, so you had to catch them (at least until answering machines became popular). This often meant calling back a lot or calling at times like dinner when you knew they would be home.
Going somewhere also meant that you needed to know how to get there because you didn't have a map. Even if you did, it was a big folded piece of paper that you couldn't read while driving. So it was easy to get lost and you'd have to ask directions from someone.
All of this made people necessarily more adaptable and made them interact more, in my opinion and experience.

You couldn't just look up a fact or a review or a picture of something.

Daily papers were just that, no?

literal schizophrenia.exe

go back to

That's a playground in a local park, it's full of kids all the time

Yeah same here. Except the kids are all brown

need to research something

consult the daily newspaper

You fucking Mongoloid.

I mean you couldn't easily find something on demand. You couldn't just find a picture of something random. Newspapers did have great classified sections for all kinds of services and things.

just don't date retarded women with the attention span of an ant.

You literally wrote about a review or a picture. How am I wrong? And if you need older papers, you always could get them. And if you need something on specific theme, there were a yearbook options for any theme.

I got my first smartphone my junior year of college, a little behind the curve but only a little, and society is significantly worse since then. Mind you social media like Myspace and Facebook were still pretty bad, but you could get by without their influence being too heavy in your life. Women were actually approachable until 2015 or so and you still saw kids play outside. Now everyone is s Demiurge niggercattle tied to the machine.

Fucking hell...

It was never easy to get older papers. If you were lucky, you could go the library and look it up on microfilm. Maybe they have a stack of a old copies of the local newspaper. Either way there was no way to search then except reading every issue and the pages you needed until you found what you were looking for.
By yearbooks, I think you mean encyclopedias. They were great for facts, but they were really expensive to own (in the US at least) and usually out of date. I remember that growing up in the 80s the encyclopedia set in my house showed Richard Nixon as the president. If you needed current information you had to go to the library (again).

When I was a teenager, phones were these massive alcatel and nokia bricks, 3310 only came out when i was finishing high school. I would just read paperback books or our local version of newsweek at the times people use phones now. Or listen to an mp3 or disc player. Before that people read black and white newspapers and listened to walkmans. People in cities always did all they could to avoid contact with others on their commute, the means to do it just improved over time.
Phone brainrot reels are just our modern version of tabloids, and decent podcasts / ebooks are a modern version of high brow newspapers or physical books.
As for the social activities, yeah my kids pull out their phones when they are together with peers, but they play amogus or roblox or minecraft or brawlstar together, it's literally not much different than a console or a boardgame or even some less physical game outside.
The more things change the more they stay the same.

Zoombies have the attention span of gold fish and will be the first generation to plant crops with mountain dew

Were people actually different before smartphones as some claim?

vintag.es/2018/12/people-reading-newspapers.html
Yes and no. We always sought out any distractions from drudgery, but the interactivity of smartphones definitely kicks the brain rot into overdrive.

Was the world really a better place before smartphones were a thing?

YES . . .WITHOUT A SHADOW OF A DOUBT.

I was born in 1965 and have seen a lot of changes, the internet at the start was great, a whole new world to get info rather than rely on newspapers, encyclopaedias, etc.

Smartphones ruined the internet.

Normies had access to things they probably shouldn't have . . . .hence the restrictions and complains from NPCs.

OPs picture is correct . . . .it's mainly women who are glued to these things and take offence at everything. It's also sad to see them in groups, ignoring each other and frantically scrolling and typing, I have even seen groups of them doing this is restaurants, they hardly speak to each other.

Internet should be PC only . . ..it acts as a kind of filter; Perhaps I'm getting old though?

Look at all that unaware jail bait

I remember having to make plans and stick to it
Like

we will meet at Xs house at 1930hrs and head out on the town

Or even just having better memories because we had to have planned things with friends and senpai before we left the house
But boredom was a thing, waiting for things was a massive fucking pain, like at a doctors surgery or for a flight
Now those times are downtime and can be relaxing reading stuff of your choice instead of old magazines

I also remember getting my first mobile Nokia brick phone

American flag sports ball shirt

Europoors are an American cargo cult

By yearbooks, I think you mean encyclopedias

No, I mean annual magazines. A book of things happened in last year tied thematically. I got some of them left from my grandfather. I even have a yearbook of grain turnover (or bread circulation, no idea which translation more correct), I've got zero idea about content of this book. These books existed for a lot of different themes, from sport to art. Not sure about food, but weekly editions about food existed for sure.

The smartphone makes it easy to avoid engaging with the outside world
I would say it’s true that younger people are engaged online but disconnected in reality and before smart phones there wasn’t really anything like it

I was born in 1995, right at the cut-off between millennial and zoomer, so I hang out with both. I definitely notice a difference, zoomers are way more NPCs than millennials. With millennials I feel I can have interesting conversations about the world, life, shared experiences, history, whatever. With zoomers, ALL their conversation is just demonstrating social proof and how normie and social they are. My parents came to visit me and we did this fun stuff together, my friends came to visit me and we did this fun stuff together, I went to visit this cool friend of mine living in this cool place and we did these fun things together, here are all the holidays and trips I have planned for the next few months, let me tell you about all cool stuff I saw when I went to visit [x] city. No culture, no interest in the world, no deep thoughts about anything, just showing off about how well-traveled they are, how cool their social circle is and how fun and laid-back they are.

That said, they aren't as smartphone addicted as the stereotype says. No TikTok obsession, no perms, they don't say "no cap" etc., and they do a lot of sports. They're just very shallow and dumb, and the majority of their existence and personality consists of socializing and traveling.

Was interaction with others easier and were people less NPC's than they are now?

If anything, people were more conformist ("NPC") before the internet (and especially before smartphones).
I just read "Die Welt von gestern" by Stefan Zweig, a book he wrote in 1940 about how people in Austria and Germany were at the onset of WWI. I find the social parallels to our current times always as striking, when I read old books. The same shit that we saw when the Ukraine war began: Zweig wrote in smart observation about how the people knew that the newspapers were ramping up artificial justifications for an attack on Serbia, because all the articles startet to appear at the same time. He wrote about the lies of propaganda, and how blatantly it startet to appear just days after the war. How most poets and writers (an the intelligensia and the artists in general) immediately adopted the new narrative - the new NPC brain chip - and started agitating the masses against France and Britain.

Whenever I observe gen z with older generations they act like social retards/autists in comparison, is this because of smartphones?

They act more autonomous, less agreeable and less conformist and that scares you.

And if it was better, how do we go back?

Why the fuck would we want to go back to a time when a tiny clique controlled all the information? Where marginalized groups are unable to communicate and connect with other like-minded individuals?

This is an important point that chicks of all ages were tapped into their surroundings before smartphones now they just stare at their screen looking at chad or off into space with a glazed look in their eyes if not able to look at their phone
everything happens online for them there used to be something I like to call “proximity chad” basicly you could score chicks that were much more attractive simply by being around and because the world was much smaller you could be older, funny, talented etc and use that to your advantage now your fucked because they aren’t even paying attention
I’v definitely noticed chicks just simply not tuned in anymore

At that time, when propaganda had not already worn itself out in peace, the people still believed everything that was printed to be true, despite a thousand disappointments. And so the pure, beautiful, self-sacrificing enthusiasm of the early days gradually turned into an orgy of the worst and stupidest emotions.

They felt honestly and thought they were acting honestly, these poets, these professors, these sudden patriots of that time, I don't deny it. But even after a very short time it became clear what a terrible disaster they were causing with their praise of the war and their orgies of hatred. In 1914, all the belligerent nations were already in a state of over-excitement; the worst rumor immediately turned into truth, the most absurd slander was believed. Dozens of people in Germany swore that they had seen gold-laden automobiles driving from France to Russia just before the outbreak of war; the tales of gouged-out eyes and cut-off hands, which promptly set in on the third or fourth day of every war, filled the newspapers. Oh, they didn't know, these clueless people who perpetuated such lies, that the technology to accuse the enemy soldier of every conceivable atrocity is as much a part of the war material as ammunition and airplanes, and that it is regularly taken out of the magazines in the first days of every war

It’s over

The moment Kaiser Wilhelm appeared in the picture, a wild whistling and trampling began spontaneously in the dark room. Everyone shouted and whistled, women, men and children jeered as if they had been personally insulted. The good-natured people of Tours, who knew no more about panic and the world than what was written in their newspapers, had gone mad for a second. I was frightened. I was shocked to the core. For I sensed how far the poisoning by the hate propaganda that had been going on for years and years must have progressed, if even here, in a small provincial town, the unsuspecting citizens and soldiers had already been so incited against the Kaiser, against Germany, that even a fleeting image on the screen could lead them to an outburst. It was only a second, a single second. When other pictures came on, everything was forgotten. People laughed from their bellies at the comic movie that was now rolling out and slapped their knees in amusement. It had only been a second, but one that showed me how easy it could be, in a moment of serious crisis, to stir up the people on both sides despite all attempts at understanding, despite our own efforts.

This is also true

Things were less bad, saw the transition when the first Iphones became mainstream (2008), things went to hell slowly after that (they always do with the devil) dating sites and social media went from tools to a social norm.

hardly any young people weee politicized

The biggest political movements in the 20th century happened way before the internet.

Zoomers don't care about politics at all, left or right. Hyper-politicization in the social media era was a mostly millennial phenomenon.