Do you think the old days were better?

[I ♥ Life]

With video cassettes, you didn't have to keep running to the store to have it cleaned or buffered, DVDs tend to get scratched all the time, also, you can record about 3 or 4 movies on a video tape.

MP3 players & USB sticks are great, those are the only things I can really give the new age fashion credit for.

What I miss though is having to go home to use a computer or play games, it's more exciting that way.
Also, the standard calculator type cellphones are great, you get everything you want on it without having to tap the screen or hold it awkwardly as if you were using a mini keyboard.

CDs are annoying, because you get stacks and stacks of them and sometimes there would be certain album you'd buy and it'd only have a few songs on there you like and you'd have to keep skipping all the other tracks just to hear your favourite song.
With cassette tapes, you can just record all your favourite songs all in one and it'd be your own personal album.

Video recorders were easy and simple, sure the tracking is terrible but what about your grand parents? How are they supposed to use a DVD player? They'd probably end up pressing the wrong buttons and instead the whole TV system will probably self-destruct just like on South Park with Chef when he tried to set up his new TV.

Having to carry everything around with you is a nuisance but when you need to write something down or count something or check the time, you have to go through all your applications on your phone and you sit there for hours, tapping at the screen and then you get all these annoying notifications saying someone poked you on Facebook.

And speaking of the internet, whatever happened to the standard basic Html? Everything is all flash media/Javascript. I know without all that we wouldn't have YouTube or Google Earth etc but I kinda miss the old standard Html sites, they were so easy & less confusing. The MySpace version 1.0 was probably the best social network site layout ever made, it was so much better, I hate Facebook and it's annoying applications and ugly flash media layout. I even visit the mobile site of Facebook more than the regular Facebook because I prefer basic Html much more +the internet loads faster with basic Html, sometimes flash media sites fail to load up and you'd see a blank page because everything is all Javascripted.

Also, I thought the test cards were very useful on TV, people stay up late and watch too much TV and it uses a lot of energy and runs their electricity bills up. Years ago, there'd be a limit to air time, channels would show a black n' white picture with a bunch of squares and there'd be these weird beeping sound in the background. This would happen around 11pm and TV programming would continue to run as normal at around 5, 6 or 7am.

Am I the only one who likes it retro?

[Joanna]

These are the 'good old days', just you wait and see.

[Bazza]

Technology is a good friend but a bad master. It's how you use it. Or how you avoid it.The old days were grim. I love my HD TV and recorder. Who would have thought you could stop a live broadcast and restart it without any loss of definition? My pc runs Excel and solves all my tax calculations leaving my brain unstrained. My mobile phone cost £10, is PAYG and I use it to communicate. Facebook and Twitter are playthings for babies. YA is my only weakness!

[Andrew]

I'll speak mostly of 80s and 90s
hip hop: hell yes, all we had were samples and hard times.
Movies: There was no CGI, back then i could still be impressed visually, and frankly movies were overall much better in quality, if you take a movie and made it from the late 80s and now, chances are it would be better back in the day when people weren't just out for the money.
Games: N64 & Sega Genesis> just about all new gen systems. I hate FPS but rpgs I sitll like a lot
Contact: Yeah no FB or cell phones, no we met up with friends and had 100% communication face to face or by home phone.
Childhood overall I think was much better back then, but that is just my opinion, I just can't imagine being raised on COD...

[DV]

I like retro stuff too

but... there's no law saying you have to own a laptop or phone with internet capability, there's no law that says you have to use the internet when you're not at home (I don't) and there's no law that says you have to have a facebook account.

DVD players are actually easier than VCRs, no rewinding, no tape to get ruined and stuck in the VCR because the back snapped off and the tape got all twisted (same with music cassette tapes)

You can put MP3s on a CD and make your own CDs and you can put 100s-1000s of songs on an mp3 player, why would you need cassette tapes? but two years ago I bought a boombox so I could play tapes, boomboxes are still out there, even record players.

HTML sites were annoying with their music and flashing ads and weird colours giving everyone headaches and the HTML always broke because of small bandwith.

Go to bed at 11pm and it won't matter. Not every channel had a limit to airtime. People who are insomniacs need something to watch.