Before Everything Was Always On

What we lost when every moment became part of our feeds.

I have a desire for simpler times.

As a millennial, I often find myself looking back on my childhood and marveling at how simple it all felt. It was certainly not perfect, just simple in a way that feels almost impossible now. Time moved differently. Afternoons stretched wide and open, with no real agenda beyond, “go outside and play.” And so we did. We made something out of nothing. We were bored, and instead of trying to escape it, we stayed there long enough for it to turn into something else. Imagination, invention, freedom.

I have come to the conclusion that boredom is underrated. Would 10/10 recommend these days.

I was an only child, which meant a lot of my time was spent alone. I had a treehouse, a dog, and an unspoken expectation that I would figure out how to fill my own hours. And so I did. Entire worlds were built in my treehouse. I would rearrange my room after school for no reason, invent games with rules that made sense only to me, dress my dog up in costumes that she absolutely did not ask for. Stories unfolded without screens, without notifications, without anyone watching or documenting them. It was just me, time, and whatever I could dream up.

No Boys Allowed! Me, living my best mid-90s life in my treehouse.

Connection looked different too. I had a box where I would keep all of the notes friends would pass me in school. I remember lying on my bedroom floor as a teenager, waiting for a boy to call me, phone cord stretched to its limit, talking about nothing and everything. We would talk for hours, goodbyes ending with “no, you hang up first.”

We burned CDs like we were producing art. Track one set the tone. Track seven made you blush and reach for the volume. If someone made you a mix, that was a declaration, or maybe even a lyrical hint at a crush.

Technology seemed to arrive more slowly back then, almost politely. In early high school, I had a pager, which is hilarious looking back. That small, beeping reminder felt like my first taste of independence. Then came the flip phone, and eventually the indestructible Nokia, with pixelated Snake, interchangeable cases, and the careful curation of my favorite song of the week, recorded as my voicemail message. Technology felt like a tool, not an extension of ourselves.

Now, everything feels louder. Faster. Childhood especially seems filled with constant stimulation, something I notice more now that I’m a parent. Screens are always glowing. Algorithms anticipate, and it feels like content never ends. There’s always something to watch, something to click, something to consume. Boredom has been almost completely engineered out of our existence.

I notice more now how often everyone is on their phones around me. Checking them during pauses in conversation, or even mid-conversation when interest fades. Waiting in line? Scroll. Sitting in silence? Fill it. Any discomfort? Distract immediately. It feels endless.

I miss the simplicity of existing before phones arrived and the internet exploded.

It doesn’t feel like just nostalgia. The world has changed, and there’s no going back. I want my daughter to have space, to learn how to be bored, and how to fill that time with imagination. To discover who she is without a screen telling her what to feel or what to want.

I want her to climb something, build something, create something.

I know I can’t recreate the past for her. But maybe I can protect small pockets of that simplicity. Maybe I can choose slowness where the world demands speed. Maybe I can teach her that it’s okay to have nothing to do, and that sometimes, that’s where the best parts of life begin.

I don’t just want it for her though. I want it for all of us.

I don’t mean this in a “technology is bad” kind of way. I’m not about to throw my phone into the ocean and live off the grid. But in a more subtle, harder-to-answer way, what did it cost us to always be connected? To always be consuming? To always be available?

Because I don’t think we’re meant to process this much of the world, constantly.

There is something grounding about not knowing everything. About not having immediate access to every opinion, every headline, every perspective at all times.

Those “simpler times” weren’t just about less technology or fewer distractions. They were about presence and possibility. We weren’t documenting our lives, we were just living them.

Maybe the goal isn’t to go backward, but to hold onto what mattered about those simpler times and carry it forward, intentionally.

I want to remind myself that not every moment needs to be documented. Some moments are better when they’re just ours.

Sometimes the best thing I can do for my daughter, and honestly for myself, is to put the phone down and just see what happens.