"I've Almost Lost The Skill Myself": 21 Skills That Were Important To Have "Back In The Day" But Are No Longer Required To Have In This Day And Age
Thanks to the world's advancements, including technology, some skills valued in the past aren't as prominent now. Recently, redditor u/ChillwithRon asked older adults in the r/AskOldPeople community to share the skills from "back in the past" that aren't as relevant now, and I never even thought about some of these. Depending on your age, here are some of the responses that'll have you either feeling nostalgic or a little confused:
1."Reading a map. I knew how by age 11, and so did my kids. Most people use their phones now, including me."
2."Making change. In the rare cases when it's required, so many cashiers nowadays clearly have no idea how to do it. I worked retail and food service from the late '70s through '80s, which was an essential skill for any young person looking for their first job. Another good one is knowing how to format a floppy disk. You couldn't do a damn thing on a computer back in the day without it. Macs made it easier than PCs, but I have the DOS command burned in my brain from my days of making boot disks en masse for computer labs."
3."Very nice cursive handwriting. Boy, did we practice that a lot in early elementary school. Also, my mom absolutely required cursive to be used in EVERY SINGLE thank you note I wrote for EVERY SINGLE gift I ever received. Actually, thank you notes were more valued back then, too, it seems."
"Handwriting. I've almost lost the skill myself. My grandchildren know next to nothing about cursive. They can type like wizzes, even the youngest at 11, but struggle to write out a note."
4."How to properly use a typewriter. I'm not talking about hitting some keys to get characters to appear on the paper. I'm talking about how to format a page properly, set the stops to halt the movement of the carriage past a certain point, set and clear tabs (if you had a high-end one), replace the ribbon, etc. I doubt many people could even find the platen."
5."Driving a stick shift."
6."This may seem obscure, but being good at bowling. Bowling teams were once a middle-class and blue (and pink) collar business networking-connection situation. Every garage, salon, and government office had a bowling team for team-building purposes. I saw the end of this in the 1970s. Golf might share the same fate, and in many areas, it's barely hanging on. The only modern equivalent to bowling teams may be online video game friends."
7."Working in a darkroom. I considered myself a 'special ninja' because I could develop film and magically make images appear on paper. Now? Not so much."
8."I was a young attorney who'd been on a law review from 1989 until 1991 when Westlaw and LexisNexis were brand new. They cost upwards of five dollars per MINUTE to use and were nothing like searching for information today. You had to know Boolean, a high-level programming language that told the search engine what to find and, more importantly, what to ignore. Because of the hours and hours of research and fact-checking I'd amassed while working on the law review, I was the only one in the office who could use it well. They caught on when I would return with answers from obscure sources that I'd located in minutes when they didn't expect me to emerge from the stacks for at least a day. This remained true for about a decade when Moore's law and other inevitable advances obviated the need for these skills. But I was a hot commodity during that time."
9."All girls were required to take a home economics class. We had to be able to sew our own clothes. Boys took shop and learned basic car care at a level no one can do on today's complicated cars."
10."Being good at business writing, technical writing, and documentation. AI can do it better and faster than any of us can now."
11."Transcribing from a dictaphone. I loved going to work, putting earphones in, and typing for hours at a time. I was always so pleased when the person I was transcribing for would comment on how fast I returned their printed pages. To take it further, even being an old-fashioned secretary is nostalgic because most people type their own letters today. No need for dictation."
12."The fine art of conversation. I talk to young kids nowadays, and they don't know how to have a conversation."
13."Spelling. When I was a kid, being a perfect speller was praised and rewarded. Today, when kids write something, they run it through their spellchecker or rely on auto-correct (not always a good idea, by the way). But knowing how to spell all kinds of words on your own isn't as much of a necessity these days."
14."I have been rather upset recently because traditional masonry practices are no longer being used, and I've heard people say, 'No one in the US even knows how to do this anymore' when talking about certain age-old masonry techniques. You would think it wasn't true and shouldn't happen in a country founded by and built by masons. But it's undeniably true and real."
15."I was once a meter reader. I had to be in shape to walk miles a day, have the personal skills to deal with varying customers, and the animal skills to non-violently deal with dogs guarding their yards. Nowadays, you can read all the meters by driving through the neighborhood with an antenna."
16."Remembering things. I used to know a hundred people's phone numbers, all my friends and family's birthdays, and a lot of poetry memorized. None of that matters now because everything is always available on people's phones."
17."My father-in-law was a very successful television repairman back in the day. Repairing TVs is pretty much no longer done."
18."Bookkeeping used to be a high-demand job. I know people who went to college for it. Now, it's just a couple of people in an office on a computer instead of 50 people and handwritten ledgers."
19."How to do math in one's head. Now, everyone has a calculator handy."
20."Typing. You used to have to practice and take speed tests for job interviews and would mention your typing speed on your resume. Now anyone can hunt and peck a keyboard and get their desired results pretty quickly."
21."My daughter was a film projectionist at the movie theater. They used to have to stay late on Wednesday nights so employees could watch every copy of every new movie to make sure the sound synced with the film and that there were no major scratches, skips, or missing sections. My daughter said that when the first digital projector was installed, and the light came on and projected white onto the screen, she and her manager could not believe how clean it was. There weren't any scratches, marks, dots, or anything. They stared at it for so long that the guy who installed it left to do something else and returned later. They were still commenting and staring at the digital projector."
Not to flex or anything, but I'm a pretty fast typer. If you're an older adult, what skills from the past were once super valuable but aren't as relevant now? Let me know in the comments, or you can anonymously submit your response using this form!
