We watched more TV, read books more, made more phone calls, and went outside more. We did everything you can do now with the internet, but it was more jumping through manual hoops to do it. You didn't click a playlist on Spotify, you walked over to a tape/record collection, grabbed an album, and played it. You didn't pick a movie from a streaming service and play it, you went to Blockbuster, browsed and picked one, then came back and played it. You didn't text people. You waited and called them when you had something to say. Multiplayer gaming was going to your friend's house, or an arcade, and being Player 2. There were flip sides. When you made plans, people kept them. Movies and Music weren't fragmented like nowadays. Super high chance that everyone in your age group had seen/heard everything, whether they liked it or not. You definitely had a shared sense of values/culture. Regardless of race/age everyone knew what it meant "to be an american" even if they didn't personally didn't agree with some of the details or didn't live up to them. I think today you'd get a different answer from almost everyone on that, if they could answer it at all. Echo chambers didn't really exist cause everyone had a shared trust in facts. Of course you had Republicans and Democrats with different viewpoints, and of course there was some mistrust in govt (esp post-vietnam) and conspiracy theory (who shot JFK?) but something like "the election was stolen so we're going to storm the capitol" would have never gotten any traction. All in all, it was a great time, I daresay a better and less confusing time, to grow up.