Rewind
16 Older Adults Share The Now-Nostalgic Everyday Items From “Back In The Day” That They Still Use
Technology and other everyday items have truly evolved to accommodate modern times, but that doesn’t mean items from “back in the day” aren’t still useful (or any less nostalgic). Recently, the older adults of the BuzzFeed Community shared the once-popular items from the past that they still use and value, and some of them felt like a blast from the past. Here are some of the close-to-obsolete items that people still love to use today:
1. “Reading maps. They’re still useful for getting around, especially if your car breaks down and your phone is either dead or doesn’t have service. Map-reading is a survival skill.”
2. “My dual cassette deck has all the recording amenities for making mixtapes, plus a stereo/CD player hooked up to it. I also have a MegaBass Walkman! Those are my lifelines to ALL the music I love. As a former DJ, I have loads of cassettes, cassingles, CDs, and precious vinyl. I’m set for life!”
—Danielle, 58, Florida
3. “I don’t know if this is completely obsolete now, but we’ve been helping out our son and daughter-in-law by paying for a diaper service! This is our first grandchild, and diaper services were a huge help back then. They’re probably not as popular now but still extremely helpful.”
4. “I love wearing my old-fashioned wristwatch. It’s nothing fancy and just has a worn-out brown leather band, but it tells me the time, and that’s all I need. I don’t need to pull my phone out constantly, and I certainly didn’t need one of those Apple Watches, either. Get a nice wristwatch, folks. Sometimes, simple is just fine.”
—Anonymous
5. “I don’t care what anyone says — I love my flip phone.”
7. “We still have a ‘family computer’ in our home. It’s a big, chunky computer that we keep downstairs in a corner. Our kids have their own places now and the computer is rarely used anymore, but it’s a nice slice of nostalgia we like to keep around.”
8. “I love my stick shift. I hate the ‘push to start’ feature in newer cars and all the touchscreens everywhere. Call it paranoia, but all that crap just doesn’t seem necessary or any safer.”
—Anonymous
9. “My iPod. My mother bought me my first one for my 49th birthday, and I asked her why she thought I wanted one. I didn’t even know what an MP3 was at the time (it was around 2005). She told me, ‘Trust me, you’ll want it.’ Now, I’m on my fourth iPod. I bought a 256GB one when Apple announced they were discontinuing it because my 128GB one was full. I have over 35,000 songs on it, and I continually shuffle my music so I don’t have to decide what song to play. I know that Apple will eventually discontinue iTunes for Windows, so I don’t know what I’m going to do when that happens.”
10. “I will never get tired of buying books in print. I love the smell of a new book!”
11. “I still have a landline and physical voice message box. I like having a home phone number and a cellphone number, as I tend to give my home phone number for non-important reasons, like signing up for memberships and whatnot. Also, since I live alone, I feel a lot better knowing I have two phones I can rely on in the event something happens.”
12. “I still like getting my credit card and bank statements in the mail. And I won’t give up my paper calendars either!”
13. “Cookbooks! Of course, I’ll still look up some recipes online if I need them, but I love buying cookbooks and trying out other people’s collections of recipes. It makes cooking feel intimate if that makes sense.”
14. “They’re obviously not obsolete, but my cameras. I like taking pictures and printing out physical pics rather than having a huge gallery on my phone.”
—Anonymous
15. “Physical media is far better than relying on streaming services or ‘buying’ a movie on a streaming platform. Not only do you have to subscribe to a ridiculous amount of services nowadays to access different content, but some platforms won’t have the sequels or originals of a movie. Not only that, but if you own a Blu-Ray of a movie, streaming platforms can’t decide that you don’t get to watch it anymore or force you to pay more to watch without commercials. Not to mention that streaming audio quality is terrible.”
16. Lastly: “I still have my childhood Game Boy. I got it for Christmas a year after it first came out from my parents, and it’s still one of the best things I own. I’m most likely blinded by nostalgia and my childhood memories, but gaming releases were so much more fun back then. Kids these days will never know.”
Honestly, kids these days will never know the struggle or stress of losing your Nintendo DS stylus. If you’re an older adult, what now-obsolete or not-so-used-anymore item do you still use or value? Share your story with me in the comments, or you can anonymously submit it using this form!
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
