Growing up before smartphones and streaming meant living in a totally different world.
From waiting days to see your photos to memorizing phone numbers, here are 10 things from the past that Gen Z will never truly understand—unless they time-travel.
1 Dial-up internet
That painfully slow connection that made a screeching sound and tied up the phone line so no one could call while you were online
2 Making a mixtape
Spending hours recording songs off the radio onto a cassette, carefully timing the record and stop buttons, and hoping the DJ didn’t talk over the song
3 Using a map instead of GPS
Unfolding a giant road map in the car, trying to find your way without turn-by-turn directions or a helpful voice telling you where to go
4 Waiting for photos to be developed
Taking pictures without knowing how they turned out, dropping off film at a store, and coming back days later just to find out half were blurry
5 TV schedules and appointment viewing
Planning your evening around a TV guide, making sure you were home when your favorite show aired because there was no streaming or on-demand
6 Burning CDs or using LimeWire
Creating your own playlists by burning songs onto blank CDs or downloading music from LimeWire, risking viruses for a free MP3
7 Calling a house phone and asking for someone
Dialing a home phone number, having a parent answer, and nervously asking, “Hi, is [name] there?”
8 Blowing into video game cartridges
When your Nintendo game wouldn’t load, you’d instinctively pull it out and blow into it like that would fix everything—and sometimes it did
9. T9 texting on flip phones
Typing out a message meant pressing number keys multiple times to get each letter—texting was a real skill and took actual patience
10. Recording TV shows on VHS
Manually setting the VCR to record a show, labeling your tapes, and hoping no one recorded over it by mistake
11. Birthdays
