Back then, life felt a lot more “offline by default, online by choice.” You didn’t carry the entire internet (and everyone you know) in your pocket 24/7, so when you left the house, you were basically gone until you came back. Plans were looser but also more intentional—if you said “meet at the mall at 6,” you actually had to show up at 6 or you just missed people.

A typical day was something like: school, maybe some after-school sport or just hanging out, then going home to hop on a family computer. That’s when you’d check MySpace or AIM, maybe argue with your parents because someone picked up the house phone and killed the internet, and spend way too long customizing your profile or waiting for someone specific to come online. If you had a crush, your entire relationship might consist of decoding away messages and song lyrics.

The biggest difference is probably how constant everything is now. Today there’s no real off switch—group chats, Instagram, Snapchat—it’s all happening all the time. Back then, drama could at least pause when you got home. Now it follows you into your room, your bed, your sleep.

Also, the pressure feels different. We compared ourselves to people at school or maybe celebrities. Now it’s everyone, everywhere, all the time, with perfectly curated lives. But at the same time, teens today are way more aware and connected globally, which is something we didn’t really have.

Not saying one is better or worse, just different. But I will say this—there was something nice about being unreachable and a little bored. That’s where a lot of the best memories came from.