Yep, pretty how I remember it.

https://old.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/1aretkm/the_70s/

Top comment there is about how thin and fit everyone was.

I was born in 71.  In my mind the 70s were a time without an anchor, old values were being lost, but not replaced with anything fleshed out.  It was a kind of intellectual and moral void.

More so than now?

I have to say that in my high school years I got on well with my significantly older hippy/Vietnam vet climbing partners (and today I really enjoy my Millennial climbing partners), but in high school in the late 1970s I felt utterly adrift and disconnected from my peers. In college (so early 80s), I started to find my people, but they were very much outside the wave of College Republicans who were so common on campus in the early Reagan years.

It was literally common on campus at the time for people to dress in what we would today call business casual (and then was called "preppy"). For a brief moment, there was a fashion for pre-wrinkled clothes (i.e. clothes that had severe wrinkles pressed into them). My mother said, "Enjoy this moment. It is the only time in your life you will ever be in fashion." She saw the me of me inside me. To this day, t-shirts are stuffed, never folded.

I only applied to one university in 1967 mostly because the guidance counselor said I couldn't get in.  So I figured it was pretty good and -uhh- didn't do any research on it.  I did know that it was all male (but surrounded by a ring of women's colleges). When I arrived, I found that:

- Coat & Tie required for classes.

- SATURDAY classes!!!

By the time I graduated (72) the 70s were getting up to speed and we had ditched the dress code, Saturday classes, and brought in women as 'exchange' students.  I've mentioned it before, but the Kent State shootings had a profound effect on our student body. And the draft was gnawing away on us 24/7.

>More so than now?

Hard to say.  If I live long enough to get some distance from this period it would help.  I'll report back to you in 20 years.

This is also valid for the 80's and 90's - 1981 baby here 

<goes to find friends at the usual hangout spot>
"What's going on?"
"Nothing."
"Alright, cool."
<continues hanging out with friends at said hangout spot, making lasting memories>

But now it's:

<messages friends on social media>
"What's going on?"
"Nothing."
"Alright, cool."
<continues sitting home, alone, depressed, eating out of boredom, while doom-scrolling on social media>

Quote from: creative666 on February 16, 2024, 08:14:44 AM
hanging out with friends

Derek Thompson has just written about the wholesale collapse of hanging out in the last 20 years. It is down 30% among adults and 50% among teens. Not since the 1980s, but basically before/after the invention of the dumb phone.

Why Americans Suddenly Stopped Hanging Out
Too much aloneness is creating a crisis of social fitness.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/america-decline-hanging-out/677451/

That article is behind a paywall, but this X thread by Derek has a lot of info related to the article

https://x.com/DKThomp/status/1758111169062089197?s=20

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/18/heres-to-hanging-out-with-friends-a-splendidly-pointless-pastime-we-are-at-risk-of-losing

Here's to hanging out with friends, a splendidly pointless pastime we're at risk of losing | Martha Gill | The Guardian

>collapse of hanging out

I have noticed this with my kids. My oldest is in 6th grade now. When I was that old (1985) I pretty much hung out with friends every day. We would just go to each others houses after school and hang out for a couple hours before heading home, we would just show up at the playground on a Saturday and play football for hours, or we would just go to the park or abandon lot or whatever and make our own fun and trouble.

Now I don't know if kids ever just go to their friends houses to play. Most of the "play dates" I see now are more whole families meeting up at a park or at someone's house. Very few kids just going to hang out at their friends house. Probably a combo of kids just communicating in different ways so they don't have to be face to face, kids being too busy with extra-curriculars, parents being too busy, parental fear, and probably some Covid hangover in there as well.

Two stories from the trenches (friend's daughter who we are close to)

- Age 13: D goes to friend's house and rings doorbell, is admitted to the house. Mother then calls father and says it is unacceptable to let his daughter drop by. The friend has homework and responsibilities and cannot be interrupted in an unscheduled way.

- Age 16 (a week ago): friends are hanging out getting stoned. D says no because "athletes don't smoke" (she's a runner). Friends tell her she is not welcome if not stoned.

Being a teenager is hard.

My own experience was, ages 0-14, hanging out with friends all the time. Ages 15-17, just didn't find my people at a new school, new neighborhood. I had *friends* but not really to just hang out with. It was friends to ski or bike or get stoned with. And several were a lot older (like 30yo climbing partners). Ages 18+ regularly hanging out with friends. Some friend has been in the house at least part of the time every day for the last few days.

One thing is that even at a very young age, if one of us had money, we would go to the grocery store and get a bag of chips to share or some other snack food (since such things mostly did not exist inside our homes, another huge change from the 1970s). This was pretty frequent and I remember being in and out of the grocery store with friends often at ages 7, 10, like that. I sometimes think that I have not seen kids walking through a grocery store without an adult in years. It just isn't done AFAICS.

PS - one of the more common things we would buy would be a box of wooden matches, which is great entertainment for a couple of 9yo boys. We always thought someone would stop us, but nobody did.

Furthermore, you could buy cigarettes, no questions asked, at 10 years old and parents regularly sent kids out to buy their smokes. And finally, with a note from your parent, most places around town would let a 10yo buy a six pack of beer.

I would say that the current policy on all these types of items is much more reasonable than it was in the 1970s.