“20 Things We Did Growing Up That Today’s Kids Wouldn’t Last Five Minutes With.”

What technology would I be better off without?

Honestly, that’s a tough one for me. I come from a time before transistors, before solid-state circuit boards, before space travel, before instant information at your fingertips. I’ve watched the world reinvent itself over and over again — and I lived the “before” version of almost everything.

Cars didn’t always start. You pumped the gas pedal, turned the key, and hoped the engine felt like cooperating. Cold mornings were a coin toss. Batteries died constantly. You learned patience and a little mechanical skill because you had no choice.

We used phone booths — real ones — with glass doors, sticky floors, and phone books thicker than a brick chained to the wall. Tolls? You handed coins to a real person, got a smile, maybe a short conversation. Human interaction wasn’t optional; it was part of everyday life.

We had maybe twenty TV channels, half fuzzy depending on the antenna. Kids walked miles to school without a parent watching a tracking app. You came home when the streetlights came on, and if you didn’t, your mother leaned out the front door and yelled your name like a town crier.

And if you had a question about anything, you didn’t “look it up.”
You called your father.
You asked a neighbor.
Or you went to the library and hoped the book you needed wasn’t already checked out.

Doctors, lawyers, and accountants were the only experts you depended on. There were no online gurus giving medical advice, financial predictions, or life coaching.

Yes, there was crime, drugs, and the underworld — but that’s where it stayed. It wasn’t mainstream, broadcast, celebrated, or normalized the way it is now.

Here’s the part I really want to say:

I feel lucky that I lived long enough to survive just fine without any of today’s technology. I know how things work. I can drive somewhere without GPS. I can fix something that breaks instead of throwing it out. I can talk to strangers face-to-face without hesitation. I can navigate life without needing a device to guide me through every step.

And because I lived that way, technology feels like a blessing, not an entitlement. I appreciate it in a way younger people simply can’t — because they’ve never had to go without it. I know both worlds, and that perspective is something I wouldn’t trade for anything.

So when someone asks me what technology I’d be better off without… honestly, none of it. I’ve lived through the “before,” and I know how good we actually have it now. Even the annoying parts are still improvements.

If I’d toss anything, it would be the tech that replaces real human connection — the scrolling, the noise, the digital drama. But the rest? It’s made my life easier, safer, and richer.

I’ve lived in two completely different worlds, and here’s the truth:

Technology isn’t the problem.
Forgetting how to be human — and how to live without it — is.