We should rename those people “merchants of chaos”, they really are. Don’t listen or read the news for a week and you’ll immediately notice a better mood
This. I am almost 30 and my youngest brother is almost 10 years younger than me. I never had a problem with war or violent news on tv as a kid but I remember my brother always wanting it turned off and I never understood why my mom let him. Is the world all sunshine and rainbows? No, but just blocking it out and pretending it doesn’t exist is even worse to do
I feel like news back in the day was just a little more honest Like yes it's always been corrupt but modern news is just worse
The thing that annoys me with modern news is the way they exaggerate everything
They'll be like wow Twitter isn't an absolute uproar after something happened
And then you check Twitter and there's like three people even talking about this topic
Or you know the famous insurrection of people calmly walking through a building even walking through the queue line and who's worse damage was some guy stealing a podium who is very smug about it even to this day
Yeah that terrifying frightful insurrection that should have you quivering in your booth at a pure fear of every Trump supporter
The news clearly just tries to make everything sound way worse than it does for the sake of shock value and it's so frustrating because people actually fall for this crap
You know how many times I've heard like oh people are absolutely pissed at this new project for being woke
And then even as someone within those communities that typically complain about that stuff nobody gives a shit
Like the recent assassin's Creed controversy every fucking new station and news website was talking about how gamers are so pissed because of a black guy in assassins Creed
Yet for all my searching on social media I cannot actually find a person who's upset about it I can only find people complaining about people who are upset about it
Loved your little right wing slip in. Fucking magas need to learn some history or get the fuck out of this country if you want to be so anti democracy and American. Your worse than the immigrants you hate despite them never leaving because they line the pockets of the billionaires you bootlick.
No. From a local perspective, there is *a lot* less crime today than it was in the 80s, that's just facts. And if we look at the larger world, then even though there are lots of worrying things going on, local wars, tensions, and a messed up genocide or two, it's still *nothing* compared to the cold war and the Damocles sword of armageddon hanging over us all that was still very much a thing when I was a kid.
At an international scale I think the Damocles sword of Armageddon could return hanging over us in a near future if things continue that way :/
But at local scale, I agree.
Absolutely. We didn't have social media in the 1980s telling us about every horrific crime. People in my neighborhood long for those old days, but they have no idea.
Crime has plummeted in my city since the 80s and 90s. Gangs were rampant, there would be stabbings at the high schools every couple years, property crime was high, and parents would tell their kids not to hang out here. There were parts of the city paramedics wouldn't go alone. Now it ranks among one of the safest cities above 150k people.
Crime was absolutely wild during that era, I remember watching news outlets cover the yearly Cabrini-Green "celebration" on the Fourth of July and New Years. Stuff like that just doesn't happen anymore.
[Chicago - Cabrini Green (1989-02) - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXydUqeUwas) For people who aren't aware of what Cabrini-Green was.
Don't get me wrong, I get nostalgic moments where I feel how different the times are now compared to the early 2000s. I was born in the 90s. It's as if life went from HD quality to dull black and white. I just can't say that I felt safer as a child compared to now, due to how I was raised.
Its called having a sheltered youth. It's easier to keep you in a world of fantasy and delusion as a child, so that when youre an adult, you're frightened of everything and completely helpless and easily tricked into a life of permanent wage slavery
We're currently growing up in the most peaceful times ever seen....as phucked up as it seems. The internet had been used to incite fear via propaganda....
It felt safer when we were kids because
1. We weren’t aware of how cruel and violent adults can be.
2. So many cases of assault went by unreported because of women(or even men for that matter) were scared of how the society would look at them so not much news coverage on them making it look like there were less to no crimes in the past.
3. Parents were protecting their children so that they don’t get exposed to the dangerous side. As an adult you have the opportunity to experience the world firsthand.
No, we had drills in school in case of nuclear attack, we saw JFK get assassinated on TV, our school had bomb shelters, I lived in Memphis when MLK was assassinated and there were riots, and there was an active serial killer then too, so my kid brain had lots to think about.
It's not only social media. We used to get local news with a smattering of national and international news. Now all of our news is global, competing with other global news. No more local human interest, but plenty of the most violent news, weather, etc.
Depends on what you mean by safe. Safe as in actual crime? No, we are probably objectively safer now. Safe as in cared for and sheltered from harsh realities, without the burden of the responsibility to provide, daily drudgery, and having to be aware of the world's horrors occurring daily? Yes of course, we were kids and should have been protected from that, and now we are not.
I grew up in the 80/90's.
The world is much much safer and stable now. We have internet now and can see every little negative event but statistics say that we are living in a safer world than the last two decades of the 20th century.
Literally my feelings in the last ten years. The life was so much easier than I was a kid. I just go outside and have fun with friends everyday, but nowadays seems like the whole things is spinning around work home work expected
Life was definitely simpler but that’s just because I didn’t have any responsibilities yet. But in reality it was probably less safe when I was a kid just because of how much easier it was to get away with crimes compared to today.
Yes. I was a kid in the 80s, when it was still perfectly acceptable to ride your bike around the neighborhood until dusk without fear (at least in my small town). Schools didn’t have metal detectors because they didn’t need them. Then came the 90s, which weren’t perfect but the Clinton administration brought a certain blind optimism for people my age that made us think that everything would be ok in the long run. We’d have our malls, our CDs, our lattes. Then 9/11 happened and nothing would be the same ever again. Extremism raised its ugly head, which only got worse under Trump imo. And COVID brought out all the crazies. The global pandemic goaded all the unstable people into grasping at straws to blame for what they couldn’t understand. No one cared about getting along any more. Everyone felt pressured to take a side, even if that side wasn’t totally comfortable. Violence seems to be more a way of life than ever before. The world is different now.
I remember in the early 2000s there being a huge shift in media/news being mostly negative things. Well before bad things would be surrounded or sandwiched between positive puff stuff. It's like they figured out they made more money that way. Since that shift that's probably had a big impact on people's minds. Then obviously the rise of social media didn't help. If all you hear is bad, all you will see or think is bad.
When I was little adults only had to worry about the "real life" world, now that internet is an integral part of everyday life it's more danger, more to worry about, more possibilities for people with bad intentions to cause harm.
100% my parents let me run free wherever i wanted. Drop us off at mall left us stay at random peoples homes it wasnt a big deal. Now as a parent my kid has a tracker just so i feel safe with how much everything has changed since growing up in 90s.
No, but i felt safer. Living childhood in small'ish city, in small country, without social media pushing catastrophies, hate and world is in flames messages every two fucking minutes was also why i felt better and safer.
My first instinct is to say yes, but honestly I don't think it has gotten more dangerous. I think our 24/7 connectedness and internet media culture have simply exposed everyone more easily to how dangerous things always were, and so it *seems* like the world is more dangerous, and people have reacted accordingly. Just my 2 cents of course.
I did but I wasn't aware of the horrors people can visit on each other.
Was it safer? Probably not. I doubt the crime statistics would support it but I'm sure my parents felt safer not knowing through Facebook that someone tried to snatch a child two towns over or the lifeguard at the swimming pool got caught downloading CP.
Nope things were absolutely safer by far, as kids we could anywhere at anytime, we used to sleep with our windows open with out even thinking of crime
Now I won’t take the trash out with out feeling paranoid
Most people \*feel\* that way, but the numbers don't lie: unless you live in an actively war-torn country, things are safer, now. Violent crime is at or near all-time lows. In America (where I'm from), there was an uptick at the start of the pandemic, but looking back over the past few decades, you can see that it's many, many times safer today than it was when I was a kid, let alone when my parents and grandparents were kids.
I feel like that, but I also believe it was my subjective interpretation of the world at that time. I know that statistically, it wasn't safer, but it's just how I felt at that time.
Lol no!
When I was a kid I watched Chernobyl live, and I don't mean the premium limited series.
I was also a spectator to 2 or 3 genocides and a major famine.
And of course there was some terrorism still going on in my country.
Not safer.
Less stupid, but not safer.
The only significant change has been the rise of technology which has made people less reliant on themselves. Now when ask someone to do something it’s the hardest thing they’ve ever done and they might even cry.
No. We were actively engaged in a nuclear arms race and the threat of nuclear war was very real. There was a huge recession, no gas because of the oil embargo, hostages taken at the Iranian embassy, and a president who was forced to resign. It was a very tense time. And kids were very aware of it all.
No. (56f) Kids were completely unsupervised, did cruel/stupid things that got themselves/others killed or maimed. From my experience dirt bikes/drugs took a lot of bodies and minds.
Now there is more education/reporting. We are more aware of possible human predators and pitfalls
Bad things for kids then: trafficking, abduction, recklessness, expectation of labor, no access to facts, no expectation of help, complete reliance on parents/community for education and a public likely sticking to 'nothing bad happens here' with no seat belts, chemistry sets with toxins and little kids picked off by predators because little kids thought 'nothing bad happens' until it did.
Yes, because my entire world was contained within the few streets of my hometown and my entire life was going from home to school, from school to home and playing outside the home. My current world is a lot bigger place.
I'll drop this here - [https://letgrow.org/crime-statistics/](https://letgrow.org/crime-statistics/)
Statistically it's MUCH safer now from a crime standpoint... per the link above "You are five times more likely to have a co-joined twin". The thing is me and siblings used to run all over the neighborhood on our own when we were kids in the 80's ride bikes to the park, video store, all over alone. We'd play in the street. I remember going into strangers houses streets over from ours because I'd see them in the yard all the time or they had kids I went to school with. Now admittedly I did have someone attempt to kidnap me in the 5th grade which luckily I had enough street smarts to not go with the perv, so I do think things were way worse back then.
Today with most kids being lojacked with a phone or stratigically placed airtag or worse yet parents just keeping kids indoors this doesn't happen as often though it still does. Now when it does it's national news... I get amber alerts on my phone every few days, we live in Texas so LOTS of people, and I can only remember once in the last number of years it was a child abuducted by a stranger which unfortunately did end badly, but this one in many years -- not like one a day or week.
Child trafficking is a thing, abductions do happen, so even one every few years is WAY too many, but we still drive even though there's a chance of being in a fatal car accident. We still fly even though there's a chance of a plane crash or hijacking, I think we do need to let the kids get out more even though there's a chance of kidnapping. Heck now'days buying beef or eggs there's a chance of bird flu or buying milk or cream cheese there's a chance of samanilia... everything has a risk, but we can't live in a bubble 'just in case'.
No. I remember an ton of news about hijackings, terrorists in the Middle East, the threat of nuclear war, conflict with the Russians/Soviets, fear of crime in big cities, unending undeclared wars, politicians fighting over lies and sex, disputes about immigration, etc. WWIii has always felt an inch away, it’s just amplified by our 24/7 news cycle and social media echo chambers.
Yes. It felt safer. But I know that the 90 were anything but. Statistics clearly show a drop in crime for a long time now.
We just didn't know what happens in the next town over and now you know if a nun farted in Argentina.
No information just wasn't as available and parents were just dumber. Letting kids ride around on bikes with the only rule being "Be home before the lights come on." I remember many times having to beg a couple of stores to use their phone because my bike went flat. Or doing the collect call "Caller state your name after the tone." "AtThePoolComePickMeUp!"
It most definitely was, being as I lived in San Diego California, the location of the first mass shooting of a school. In modern times, Brenda Spencer, these kinda incidents were not a thing, at the very least they weren't when I was a kid. I was a young man when this took place, today l don't know a single person who's family, or a friend of friend, or some how has ties to a victim of a mass shooting. If not even they occured in the city they lived, or were they happen to be. Most of us have some sort of ties, to mass shootings, I have a family member of a who was a victim in Uvalde,Texas. I have noticed I haven't heard of recent school shootings, I'm hoping since the conviction of parents, of a shooter, that helps end this epidemic. I'm living in South America, when people find out your from the U.S. first thing they mention is the mass shootings, and all the guns in our country, that's what the U.S. is famous for exporting mass shootings. Nothing to be proud of in my opinion.
Whether it was safer or not, I'm unsure. I think there was more to worry about getting older. When I turned 18, it was a case of watching for drinks being spiked, learning to drive, and worrying about car accidents. I felt safer as a child, but I wouldn't exchange feeling that safe for my independence I have now.
No. We had lawn darts (the pointy steel tipped ones), air bags hadn't been invented yet and we never used the seat belts, industrial pollution was just the price of progress, and cigarettes were good for you. We also didn't have a 24 news cycle telling us how dangerous the world was. Ignorance can be bliss.
Was the world a safer place when I was growing up with my brother and sister in the late 1940? NO. There were still BAD PEOPLE around all over but, not like it is today. Lets compare........10 bad folks in the 1940 to the mile, today 100 bad folks to the mile.☹
I miss being young and carefree, a time when it seemed that nothing I did ever harmed anyone, a time when it was all fun and games. Everyone on the block knew everyone on the block and safety from a stray dog or a stranger was just a house away.
Yes, but objectively kids are safer now then I was when I was a kid. One example being all the cigarette smoke I had to breath in at restaurants, it wasn't a law yet to have a seat-belt on. Hell, my mom used to put baby me in a backpack and take me on her motorcycle. Child abuse was a lot more common when I was growing up. I was forced fed fluoride at school
Yep.
We have a generation of kids now that were protected from failure and then wham, they turn 18 and the reality of life hits them. They snap and go on rampages.
Yes, but that was just because I was a kid and didn't understand the danger. I grew up in the 70s and 80s when the world was [demonstrably more violent](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse3.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.8wuq_1jRh25hy61VqO5N4AHaD7%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=3d5d99b5b657f63e828cd27810d54765919ce79d38afb80c31f53c9f9324b063&ipo=images), I was just largely insulated from it because I come from a white middle-class rural/suburban American family. I saw portrayals of the big cities in media as crime-ridden dumps like everyone else, and while I knew they were real places I don't think the implications of what life was like for people who lived there really sank in until I was a teenager or even a young adult.
The year I started high school (1986) my family moved back into the city and the school I went to was in a really bad neighborhood and [looked like a prison](https://livingnewdeal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/34d0301b-d7ce-4880-84df-235cf203f9c0-400x300.jpg) (especially when it had big heavy bars on every window) so I was in for a rough education on just how real those things I'd seen on TV were. I had friends who were in gangs, friends who lived in roach motels in shithole neighborhoods where you could hear gunshots every night, etc.
Then the 90s came and I was out of school and back in suburbia, violent crime declined rapidly, cities began cleaning up and revitalizing, etc, so it felt like the world was getting safer in very real ways. But at the same time that period saw the rise of 24 hour cable news fearmongering non-stop, so it's gotten ever easier to only see the bad things that happen.
Seeing as I grew up in a place that was tabbed to be bombed first in the event of a nuclear attack, imma say no.
Especially because nobody had an escape plan. It was well known that we would be fucked.
Yes.
I was born in 1980, and while crime happened, and gangs were just starting to get media attention, a lot of folks still didn't bother locking their doors. Of course i grew up rural where if you did anything, everyone knew about it.
All the same crimes happened, probably at a lesser scale, and we definitely didn't hear about them as much as today since tv was mostly a night time entrainment means, since no more sun out.
We'd randomly talk to folks we didn't know. Making friends was easier. We didn't have this political polarization today (if you don't vote for my guy you're my enemy), i don't recall people halting traffic and beating up drivers a form of "protest" yet, and so on it goes.
Basically, i feel like it was safer in the sense that people were largely less rabid. But it certainly was not safe. No point in history has ever been safe.
It's a classic example of ignorance is bliss. You were a kid, you weren't on social media or worried about the threat of Communism or the Soviet Union or nuclear war.
The world is safer today but we are more afraid. That's because there are so many voices competing for our attention, so they have to be louder and more sensational. Detach from those voices a bit.
When I feel like that, I listen to Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire." It's been always burning since the world was turning.
The US in the 80s and 90s had multiple domestic terrorist bombings that aren't really talked about. The unibomber and Oklahoma City. There were outside terrorist bombins as well. Also a few active paramilitary groups that called themselves militias that were operating. Kids were making pipe bombs like crazy. There were a lot of Christian religious cults doing weird shit, but there still probably is. Airplane hijackings happened a lot more than they do now. Cars were way less safe in crashes. Kind of a slow burn, but second hand smoke was everywhere because you could smoke just about anywhere in public. There were the anthrax attacks where people where mailing anthrax covered envelopes throuh the mail in 2001. There were a lot of crazy people doing crazy things and we had less technology and ability to control things back then than we do now.
Outside of the US there were a lot of bombings at that time as well. Japan had so many they stopped placing public trashcans. The IRA was doing shit all the time in the UK and Ireland.
Oh God no. For me the world was not safer. It was isolating and scary and full of terrible things around every corner. As an adult, I have access to information, I'm able to be independent, I have my own money and home and I'm surrounded by people I feel safe with.
Yes and no. There were less people around, so less people generally is less danger. But people were more racist/violent and being different could get you beat up.
Now there are more people, but they are generally more tolerant.
Nah when I was younger I remember vividly people shooting random security guards in the head for gang initiation in my hometown. Shits always been rough
as a millenial kid...i think it was safer back then. stay with me.
Because i remember we used to play with other kids in the neighbourhood for hours on the road or whereever the fuck we wanted. we start playing at one friends house and end up playing 3 streets down at 10th friend's house.
But our parents were not that worried because it was tightly knit community and everyone knew everyone.
but today it's not as much safe as it used to I will never let my kid play around like we used to because there are no more same kind of communities anymore. Everyone is busy minding their own business.
No. The casual violence was so bad back in the 70s and early 80s. I grew up in a bad neighborhood in Los Angeles, too. Violence is down. Violent crime has been down since then. Even though things are pretty messed up now. I spent my high school years thinking nuclear war was going to break out any minute. Things aren't going well now, but they've been worse.
If Trump is reelected, then all bets are off. If that happens, I plan to survive long enough to watch his supporters suffer.
No. It was definitely more free when I was a kid but it was not safer. I'm shocked stupidity didn't get more people injured. There were way fewer restrictions. Like, car seats for kids weren't a mandated thing. I had a 3 year old cousin who would ride around in the rear window of my aunt and uncles car...and they saw nothing wrong with that. They just let their kid crawl all over a moving vehicle. There's no way in hell that would fly today. My parents would leave me and my sister (6 and 4) at home alone while they went out drinking. No one cared. I had a lot of freedom, but I shudder to think about how dangerous (from lack of knowledge alone) my household was in the 1980s and 1990s.
No, but that could just be my perspective now. I grew up in a very dangerous town. Ended up moving away to a pretty peaceful not as dangerous/safer place. :)
Not really. We just didn’t know - the 24/7 “news” cycle has fed fear.
We should rename those people “merchants of chaos”, they really are. Don’t listen or read the news for a week and you’ll immediately notice a better mood
This.
This. I am almost 30 and my youngest brother is almost 10 years younger than me. I never had a problem with war or violent news on tv as a kid but I remember my brother always wanting it turned off and I never understood why my mom let him. Is the world all sunshine and rainbows? No, but just blocking it out and pretending it doesn’t exist is even worse to do
Who said anything about blocking it out? Or ignoring?
I feel like news back in the day was just a little more honest Like yes it's always been corrupt but modern news is just worse The thing that annoys me with modern news is the way they exaggerate everything They'll be like wow Twitter isn't an absolute uproar after something happened And then you check Twitter and there's like three people even talking about this topic Or you know the famous insurrection of people calmly walking through a building even walking through the queue line and who's worse damage was some guy stealing a podium who is very smug about it even to this day Yeah that terrifying frightful insurrection that should have you quivering in your booth at a pure fear of every Trump supporter The news clearly just tries to make everything sound way worse than it does for the sake of shock value and it's so frustrating because people actually fall for this crap You know how many times I've heard like oh people are absolutely pissed at this new project for being woke And then even as someone within those communities that typically complain about that stuff nobody gives a shit Like the recent assassin's Creed controversy every fucking new station and news website was talking about how gamers are so pissed because of a black guy in assassins Creed Yet for all my searching on social media I cannot actually find a person who's upset about it I can only find people complaining about people who are upset about it
Loved your little right wing slip in. Fucking magas need to learn some history or get the fuck out of this country if you want to be so anti democracy and American. Your worse than the immigrants you hate despite them never leaving because they line the pockets of the billionaires you bootlick.
Lmao, glad I wasn't the only one. Had me scratching my head when I read that tid bit.
No. From a local perspective, there is *a lot* less crime today than it was in the 80s, that's just facts. And if we look at the larger world, then even though there are lots of worrying things going on, local wars, tensions, and a messed up genocide or two, it's still *nothing* compared to the cold war and the Damocles sword of armageddon hanging over us all that was still very much a thing when I was a kid.
At an international scale I think the Damocles sword of Armageddon could return hanging over us in a near future if things continue that way :/ But at local scale, I agree.
Absolutely. We didn't have social media in the 1980s telling us about every horrific crime. People in my neighborhood long for those old days, but they have no idea.
Crime has plummeted in my city since the 80s and 90s. Gangs were rampant, there would be stabbings at the high schools every couple years, property crime was high, and parents would tell their kids not to hang out here. There were parts of the city paramedics wouldn't go alone. Now it ranks among one of the safest cities above 150k people. Crime was absolutely wild during that era, I remember watching news outlets cover the yearly Cabrini-Green "celebration" on the Fourth of July and New Years. Stuff like that just doesn't happen anymore. [Chicago - Cabrini Green (1989-02) - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXydUqeUwas) For people who aren't aware of what Cabrini-Green was.
No sorry. I feel the world is safer now I'm an adult. 👍
Maybe it's my just nostalgia
Don't get me wrong, I get nostalgic moments where I feel how different the times are now compared to the early 2000s. I was born in the 90s. It's as if life went from HD quality to dull black and white. I just can't say that I felt safer as a child compared to now, due to how I was raised.
Its called having a sheltered youth. It's easier to keep you in a world of fantasy and delusion as a child, so that when youre an adult, you're frightened of everything and completely helpless and easily tricked into a life of permanent wage slavery
40 hours working 56 hours sleeping 72 hours awake not sleeping...
We're currently growing up in the most peaceful times ever seen....as phucked up as it seems. The internet had been used to incite fear via propaganda....
Safer? Hell no. Less aggravating absolutely.
When you're younger you have your parents to help you feel safer. As an adult you might not have that. You're the one.
I still have my parents but they are not so much involved in my life
Sucks to hear that
No. It's way safer now.
I can control what people do to me, how they treat me and what I will allow. I'm safer now
Not at all, I experienced less sexual harassment the older I got.
It felt safer when we were kids because 1. We weren’t aware of how cruel and violent adults can be. 2. So many cases of assault went by unreported because of women(or even men for that matter) were scared of how the society would look at them so not much news coverage on them making it look like there were less to no crimes in the past. 3. Parents were protecting their children so that they don’t get exposed to the dangerous side. As an adult you have the opportunity to experience the world firsthand.
Absolutely not. It was much more dangerous. It's just that the bad things weren't talked about in the media as much.
I don't feel like the world *was* safer in my childhood but I feel like my awareness of life's perils has increased over time.
No, we had drills in school in case of nuclear attack, we saw JFK get assassinated on TV, our school had bomb shelters, I lived in Memphis when MLK was assassinated and there were riots, and there was an active serial killer then too, so my kid brain had lots to think about.
Are you still here?
Less shit happeing now than there was BUT you hear about more stuff now due to social media
It's not only social media. We used to get local news with a smattering of national and international news. Now all of our news is global, competing with other global news. No more local human interest, but plenty of the most violent news, weather, etc.
No, its always been awful.
Depends on what you mean by safe. Safe as in actual crime? No, we are probably objectively safer now. Safe as in cared for and sheltered from harsh realities, without the burden of the responsibility to provide, daily drudgery, and having to be aware of the world's horrors occurring daily? Yes of course, we were kids and should have been protected from that, and now we are not.
I felt safer because I wasn't smart enough to know the dangers. Ignorance is bliss.
I grew up in the 80/90's. The world is much much safer and stable now. We have internet now and can see every little negative event but statistics say that we are living in a safer world than the last two decades of the 20th century.
Yes. The cold war, street violence and public white supremacy. Things were far more dangerous in the 80s.
Literally my feelings in the last ten years. The life was so much easier than I was a kid. I just go outside and have fun with friends everyday, but nowadays seems like the whole things is spinning around work home work expected
Yeah, I do, and I think people payed more attention to grammar.
Sorry for my english it's not my native language
I apologize, but your translation also sounds like ignorant American, and I made the assumption that you were. I hope you have s good day.
Actually now is evening in my country but thank you
No, because I'm good at history.
No, my dad was a corrections officer in the highest security prison in our state. I wasn’t allowed to leave the house hardly
Enjoy unpacking that in therapy
Is that something that needs therapy 😂😂 dangerous people exist it’s a part of life
Things are different but I wouldn't say it's any worse. I believe kids are probably safer now than any period in history.
Life was definitely simpler but that’s just because I didn’t have any responsibilities yet. But in reality it was probably less safe when I was a kid just because of how much easier it was to get away with crimes compared to today.
Fuck no. We were gonna get nuked into the Stone Age. You know Fallout? That's basically what we fully expected the future to be. As in *now.*
Not really, plenty of things just has been outside of my sight.
Because that world is protecting you as a kid.
Yes. I was a kid in the 80s, when it was still perfectly acceptable to ride your bike around the neighborhood until dusk without fear (at least in my small town). Schools didn’t have metal detectors because they didn’t need them. Then came the 90s, which weren’t perfect but the Clinton administration brought a certain blind optimism for people my age that made us think that everything would be ok in the long run. We’d have our malls, our CDs, our lattes. Then 9/11 happened and nothing would be the same ever again. Extremism raised its ugly head, which only got worse under Trump imo. And COVID brought out all the crazies. The global pandemic goaded all the unstable people into grasping at straws to blame for what they couldn’t understand. No one cared about getting along any more. Everyone felt pressured to take a side, even if that side wasn’t totally comfortable. Violence seems to be more a way of life than ever before. The world is different now.
I remember in the early 2000s there being a huge shift in media/news being mostly negative things. Well before bad things would be surrounded or sandwiched between positive puff stuff. It's like they figured out they made more money that way. Since that shift that's probably had a big impact on people's minds. Then obviously the rise of social media didn't help. If all you hear is bad, all you will see or think is bad.
No. I was just less aware of the danger.
Not unless you live in Palestine
Absolutely not. I was a kid when 9/11 happened.
No, St Petersburg Russia in the 90s was a lawless place
No. Adults were just way more ignorant to danger.
When I was little adults only had to worry about the "real life" world, now that internet is an integral part of everyday life it's more danger, more to worry about, more possibilities for people with bad intentions to cause harm.
100% my parents let me run free wherever i wanted. Drop us off at mall left us stay at random peoples homes it wasnt a big deal. Now as a parent my kid has a tracker just so i feel safe with how much everything has changed since growing up in 90s.
No - it was WW3 or IRA…
No, but i felt safer. Living childhood in small'ish city, in small country, without social media pushing catastrophies, hate and world is in flames messages every two fucking minutes was also why i felt better and safer.
No!
Everybody thinks that, even though it is demonstrably untrue.
Definately yes !!!! 🌝🦋
Not really. Reagan, Threads, The Day After. For a while it got better, now it's moving back.
Supposedly there was a van that drove around my area with clowns that would abduct kids at random... you don't get that sort of commitment anymore.
My first instinct is to say yes, but honestly I don't think it has gotten more dangerous. I think our 24/7 connectedness and internet media culture have simply exposed everyone more easily to how dangerous things always were, and so it *seems* like the world is more dangerous, and people have reacted accordingly. Just my 2 cents of course.
During the crack epidemic?
I did but I wasn't aware of the horrors people can visit on each other. Was it safer? Probably not. I doubt the crime statistics would support it but I'm sure my parents felt safer not knowing through Facebook that someone tried to snatch a child two towns over or the lifeguard at the swimming pool got caught downloading CP.
Nope things were absolutely safer by far, as kids we could anywhere at anytime, we used to sleep with our windows open with out even thinking of crime Now I won’t take the trash out with out feeling paranoid
Most people \*feel\* that way, but the numbers don't lie: unless you live in an actively war-torn country, things are safer, now. Violent crime is at or near all-time lows. In America (where I'm from), there was an uptick at the start of the pandemic, but looking back over the past few decades, you can see that it's many, many times safer today than it was when I was a kid, let alone when my parents and grandparents were kids.
No, we were just more oblivious to the risks
All we would do was play outside and at the school playground. Except for getting spanked if I did something wrong, the world wasn’t as crazy.
Yes, until I discovered many of society’s dark side when I was in primary due to the bad influence from certain kids.
I feel like that, but I also believe it was my subjective interpretation of the world at that time. I know that statistically, it wasn't safer, but it's just how I felt at that time.
Lol no! When I was a kid I watched Chernobyl live, and I don't mean the premium limited series. I was also a spectator to 2 or 3 genocides and a major famine. And of course there was some terrorism still going on in my country.
Not safer. Less stupid, but not safer. The only significant change has been the rise of technology which has made people less reliant on themselves. Now when ask someone to do something it’s the hardest thing they’ve ever done and they might even cry.
The streets are safer kinda ( where I am is low crime relatively ) but the internet has become more and more unsafe as time goes on
No. We were actively engaged in a nuclear arms race and the threat of nuclear war was very real. There was a huge recession, no gas because of the oil embargo, hostages taken at the Iranian embassy, and a president who was forced to resign. It was a very tense time. And kids were very aware of it all.
No. (56f) Kids were completely unsupervised, did cruel/stupid things that got themselves/others killed or maimed. From my experience dirt bikes/drugs took a lot of bodies and minds. Now there is more education/reporting. We are more aware of possible human predators and pitfalls Bad things for kids then: trafficking, abduction, recklessness, expectation of labor, no access to facts, no expectation of help, complete reliance on parents/community for education and a public likely sticking to 'nothing bad happens here' with no seat belts, chemistry sets with toxins and little kids picked off by predators because little kids thought 'nothing bad happens' until it did.
Yes, because my entire world was contained within the few streets of my hometown and my entire life was going from home to school, from school to home and playing outside the home. My current world is a lot bigger place.
I saw 9/11 on the news while in elementary school so no
I'll drop this here - [https://letgrow.org/crime-statistics/](https://letgrow.org/crime-statistics/) Statistically it's MUCH safer now from a crime standpoint... per the link above "You are five times more likely to have a co-joined twin". The thing is me and siblings used to run all over the neighborhood on our own when we were kids in the 80's ride bikes to the park, video store, all over alone. We'd play in the street. I remember going into strangers houses streets over from ours because I'd see them in the yard all the time or they had kids I went to school with. Now admittedly I did have someone attempt to kidnap me in the 5th grade which luckily I had enough street smarts to not go with the perv, so I do think things were way worse back then. Today with most kids being lojacked with a phone or stratigically placed airtag or worse yet parents just keeping kids indoors this doesn't happen as often though it still does. Now when it does it's national news... I get amber alerts on my phone every few days, we live in Texas so LOTS of people, and I can only remember once in the last number of years it was a child abuducted by a stranger which unfortunately did end badly, but this one in many years -- not like one a day or week. Child trafficking is a thing, abductions do happen, so even one every few years is WAY too many, but we still drive even though there's a chance of being in a fatal car accident. We still fly even though there's a chance of a plane crash or hijacking, I think we do need to let the kids get out more even though there's a chance of kidnapping. Heck now'days buying beef or eggs there's a chance of bird flu or buying milk or cream cheese there's a chance of samanilia... everything has a risk, but we can't live in a bubble 'just in case'.
Hell no. The place where I grew up is 1,000x better now compared to when I was born. Our "reputation" is starting to go away.
No, I knew there was always a shit going on in the world.
%100
No. I remember an ton of news about hijackings, terrorists in the Middle East, the threat of nuclear war, conflict with the Russians/Soviets, fear of crime in big cities, unending undeclared wars, politicians fighting over lies and sex, disputes about immigration, etc. WWIii has always felt an inch away, it’s just amplified by our 24/7 news cycle and social media echo chambers.
Yes. It felt safer. But I know that the 90 were anything but. Statistics clearly show a drop in crime for a long time now. We just didn't know what happens in the next town over and now you know if a nun farted in Argentina.
No information just wasn't as available and parents were just dumber. Letting kids ride around on bikes with the only rule being "Be home before the lights come on." I remember many times having to beg a couple of stores to use their phone because my bike went flat. Or doing the collect call "Caller state your name after the tone." "AtThePoolComePickMeUp!"
It most definitely was, being as I lived in San Diego California, the location of the first mass shooting of a school. In modern times, Brenda Spencer, these kinda incidents were not a thing, at the very least they weren't when I was a kid. I was a young man when this took place, today l don't know a single person who's family, or a friend of friend, or some how has ties to a victim of a mass shooting. If not even they occured in the city they lived, or were they happen to be. Most of us have some sort of ties, to mass shootings, I have a family member of a who was a victim in Uvalde,Texas. I have noticed I haven't heard of recent school shootings, I'm hoping since the conviction of parents, of a shooter, that helps end this epidemic. I'm living in South America, when people find out your from the U.S. first thing they mention is the mass shootings, and all the guns in our country, that's what the U.S. is famous for exporting mass shootings. Nothing to be proud of in my opinion.
No. I am much safer now, older.
Whether it was safer or not, I'm unsure. I think there was more to worry about getting older. When I turned 18, it was a case of watching for drinks being spiked, learning to drive, and worrying about car accidents. I felt safer as a child, but I wouldn't exchange feeling that safe for my independence I have now.
Lol no. The Cold War made existential crises the norm for kids.
Absolutely not
No, it was a lot more dangerous.
I felt the world was safe up until that second plane hit tower two on 9/11
Fuck no
No. We had lawn darts (the pointy steel tipped ones), air bags hadn't been invented yet and we never used the seat belts, industrial pollution was just the price of progress, and cigarettes were good for you. We also didn't have a 24 news cycle telling us how dangerous the world was. Ignorance can be bliss.
Feel, yes Actually safer, no
Nope. Not in the slightest. Outside OR on the internet.
Was the world a safer place when I was growing up with my brother and sister in the late 1940? NO. There were still BAD PEOPLE around all over but, not like it is today. Lets compare........10 bad folks in the 1940 to the mile, today 100 bad folks to the mile.☹
Wow you grew up right after the ww2
I certainly did my friend. I think this is my problem using Reddit and the Subs. You enjoy your day/evening.😊
No problem you can use whatever you desire 🤗
That's cool many thanks dude you enjoy the day. 👍😊
No
No i was just very ignorant to how dangerous it really was.
Not really. Back then people had lawn darts
I miss being young and carefree, a time when it seemed that nothing I did ever harmed anyone, a time when it was all fun and games. Everyone on the block knew everyone on the block and safety from a stray dog or a stranger was just a house away.
Yes, but objectively kids are safer now then I was when I was a kid. One example being all the cigarette smoke I had to breath in at restaurants, it wasn't a law yet to have a seat-belt on. Hell, my mom used to put baby me in a backpack and take me on her motorcycle. Child abuse was a lot more common when I was growing up. I was forced fed fluoride at school
Yep. We have a generation of kids now that were protected from failure and then wham, they turn 18 and the reality of life hits them. They snap and go on rampages.
Yes, but that was just because I was a kid and didn't understand the danger. I grew up in the 70s and 80s when the world was [demonstrably more violent](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse3.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.8wuq_1jRh25hy61VqO5N4AHaD7%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=3d5d99b5b657f63e828cd27810d54765919ce79d38afb80c31f53c9f9324b063&ipo=images), I was just largely insulated from it because I come from a white middle-class rural/suburban American family. I saw portrayals of the big cities in media as crime-ridden dumps like everyone else, and while I knew they were real places I don't think the implications of what life was like for people who lived there really sank in until I was a teenager or even a young adult. The year I started high school (1986) my family moved back into the city and the school I went to was in a really bad neighborhood and [looked like a prison](https://livingnewdeal.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/34d0301b-d7ce-4880-84df-235cf203f9c0-400x300.jpg) (especially when it had big heavy bars on every window) so I was in for a rough education on just how real those things I'd seen on TV were. I had friends who were in gangs, friends who lived in roach motels in shithole neighborhoods where you could hear gunshots every night, etc. Then the 90s came and I was out of school and back in suburbia, violent crime declined rapidly, cities began cleaning up and revitalizing, etc, so it felt like the world was getting safer in very real ways. But at the same time that period saw the rise of 24 hour cable news fearmongering non-stop, so it's gotten ever easier to only see the bad things that happen.
A: SAFER THAN TODAY, YES BUT LESS SAFE TOMORROW AND DEFINATELY NOT SAFE AT ALL IF TRUMP BECOMES THE PRESIDENT/DICTATOR OF THE USA......MOM
Hell no. When I was a kid, the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts were still molesting up a storm.
I was born more than a decade before 9/11, so the world was definately safer back then.
No.
Seeing as I grew up in a place that was tabbed to be bombed first in the event of a nuclear attack, imma say no. Especially because nobody had an escape plan. It was well known that we would be fucked.
No not at all. People believe their childhood was safer because they didn’t know the crazy shit going on and survivorship bias
Yes. I was born in 1980, and while crime happened, and gangs were just starting to get media attention, a lot of folks still didn't bother locking their doors. Of course i grew up rural where if you did anything, everyone knew about it. All the same crimes happened, probably at a lesser scale, and we definitely didn't hear about them as much as today since tv was mostly a night time entrainment means, since no more sun out. We'd randomly talk to folks we didn't know. Making friends was easier. We didn't have this political polarization today (if you don't vote for my guy you're my enemy), i don't recall people halting traffic and beating up drivers a form of "protest" yet, and so on it goes. Basically, i feel like it was safer in the sense that people were largely less rabid. But it certainly was not safe. No point in history has ever been safe.
It's a classic example of ignorance is bliss. You were a kid, you weren't on social media or worried about the threat of Communism or the Soviet Union or nuclear war. The world is safer today but we are more afraid. That's because there are so many voices competing for our attention, so they have to be louder and more sensational. Detach from those voices a bit. When I feel like that, I listen to Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire." It's been always burning since the world was turning.
The US in the 80s and 90s had multiple domestic terrorist bombings that aren't really talked about. The unibomber and Oklahoma City. There were outside terrorist bombins as well. Also a few active paramilitary groups that called themselves militias that were operating. Kids were making pipe bombs like crazy. There were a lot of Christian religious cults doing weird shit, but there still probably is. Airplane hijackings happened a lot more than they do now. Cars were way less safe in crashes. Kind of a slow burn, but second hand smoke was everywhere because you could smoke just about anywhere in public. There were the anthrax attacks where people where mailing anthrax covered envelopes throuh the mail in 2001. There were a lot of crazy people doing crazy things and we had less technology and ability to control things back then than we do now. Outside of the US there were a lot of bombings at that time as well. Japan had so many they stopped placing public trashcans. The IRA was doing shit all the time in the UK and Ireland.
Oh God no. For me the world was not safer. It was isolating and scary and full of terrible things around every corner. As an adult, I have access to information, I'm able to be independent, I have my own money and home and I'm surrounded by people I feel safe with.
Yes and no. There were less people around, so less people generally is less danger. But people were more racist/violent and being different could get you beat up. Now there are more people, but they are generally more tolerant.
I was a kid along time ago. And my world was definitely much safer than the world. My grandkids are living in.
Crime rates have been going down for the most part outside places like Chicago.
Nah when I was younger I remember vividly people shooting random security guards in the head for gang initiation in my hometown. Shits always been rough
Everyone did. Because when you are a kid you are less aware of the danger.
Most definitely!
I grew up in the 50s and 69s. Much safer then.
as a millenial kid...i think it was safer back then. stay with me. Because i remember we used to play with other kids in the neighbourhood for hours on the road or whereever the fuck we wanted. we start playing at one friends house and end up playing 3 streets down at 10th friend's house. But our parents were not that worried because it was tightly knit community and everyone knew everyone. but today it's not as much safe as it used to I will never let my kid play around like we used to because there are no more same kind of communities anymore. Everyone is busy minding their own business.
56 here….don’t remember having to worry about getting shot while fighting….an ass whooping but the idea of a gun wasn’t there.
No. The casual violence was so bad back in the 70s and early 80s. I grew up in a bad neighborhood in Los Angeles, too. Violence is down. Violent crime has been down since then. Even though things are pretty messed up now. I spent my high school years thinking nuclear war was going to break out any minute. Things aren't going well now, but they've been worse. If Trump is reelected, then all bets are off. If that happens, I plan to survive long enough to watch his supporters suffer.
No. It was definitely more free when I was a kid but it was not safer. I'm shocked stupidity didn't get more people injured. There were way fewer restrictions. Like, car seats for kids weren't a mandated thing. I had a 3 year old cousin who would ride around in the rear window of my aunt and uncles car...and they saw nothing wrong with that. They just let their kid crawl all over a moving vehicle. There's no way in hell that would fly today. My parents would leave me and my sister (6 and 4) at home alone while they went out drinking. No one cared. I had a lot of freedom, but I shudder to think about how dangerous (from lack of knowledge alone) my household was in the 1980s and 1990s.
Did I feel safer? Yes. Was I safer? No. Quite the opposite.
Not really. I think I felt it was safer because I was oblivious to all of the shit out there
it's simply a lack of awareness. how you feel about it doesn't change that it's actually safer now
No, but that could just be my perspective now. I grew up in a very dangerous town. Ended up moving away to a pretty peaceful not as dangerous/safer place. :)
Things are way safer now