7 things no one had anxiety about 20 years ago

The world has changed so dramatically in the past couple years. No, really, it’s just been a few years since most of life was profoundly different, when you really think about it. It’s like as soon as everyone got a computer, and you didn’t have to dial into the internet anymore, everything changed. For anyone who grew up in the ’90s, it’s kind of crazy to imagine all of the things no one had anxiety about 20 years ago — and that we mostly all worry about these days.

The things we worry about now would’ve been unimaginable in 1997.

We are literally living in the future. As much as how we work, communicate with each other, date, or even watch TV have all gotten easier, it’s all also gotten stressful AF. On the other hand, we no longer have to leave the house to rent a movie on a Friday night or even to buy toilet paper if we don’t want to, so maybe that’s worth the increased stress.

Here are just a few things that people would never even had thought about back in 1997.

1Whether or not your packages arrived.

Sure, maybe if you used to order things from the Delia’s catalog, you would worry it wouldn’t show up on your doorstep after a MONTH had passed. But now that we order things from Amazon Prime all the time, we are impatient little people! How many times do you check your phone to see if you got that delivery notification, or complained that something you ordered wasn’t included in Prime, and you had to pay for shipping.

2Sending the wrong message to the wrong person.

We’re on so many devices all the time! It’s totally common to accidentally send a GChat meant for your BFF to your boss by accident or talk smack about someone in your group chat to the group chat. And then there’s forgetting about emails that end up in the wrong inbox or accidentally using the wrong emoji in a crucial moment. As much as we try to remind ourselves to be check before we hit send, we sometimes forget, and we always low-key worry about forgetting.

3Your social media “brand.”

When did everyone start to become their own brand? Back in the day, before you got a job or even a new crush, you didn’t have to worry about whether your Facebook posts were too dorky or not or if your “follower ratio” was up to par. Yes, we might have edited (over and over again) our AIM profiles or tortured ourselves over our LiveJournals, but it was nowhere near as intense. Our social media presence can actually affect our IRL lives.

4Worrying about our somewhat troubling delivery food habit.

Have you ever felt really bad about ordering Chinese food in the middle of a storm or on a blistering hot day? Or whether the pizza guy was judging you for your 5th order in a row this week? No? Well, some of us do! Even in major cities, food delivery wasn’t always such a thing; You had to really plan it out. Although it’s easier now, the whole process is rife with issues, most of which are based on the fact that we have ten different food-ordering apps sucking our money and giving us a visual reminder of just how many times we’ve ordered the exact same thing.

5Revenge porn.

Way back when, you could talk dirty with your boo on the phone, or get a little dirty on AIM if you wanted to, and you had very little to worry about — once it was over, it was truly over, with no leftover evidence. But with cameras and video cameras on our phones, so many more of us are sending dirty pics, and the fear that the image will end up in the wrong hands is very, very real. Revenge porn has always existed, but since sexting is so much easier and common these days, the stress level is way up.

6If your TV is judging you.

Yes, Netflix, we’re still watching Gilmore Girls…and eating food we had delivered…and waiting for Postmates to bring us wine, and…OMG WHY ARE WE LIKE THIS?

7Getting swiped.

Dating apps have brought about so many new anxieties that it’s hard to even list them. For sure, dating was always hard and came with its own sort of challenges, but taking *a perfect* profile picture and coming up with an opener (and then finding a way to ditch a weird date)… It’s a lot to deal with.

There are so many things we miss about the good ol’days and less stress is one of them. But Twitter? We wouldn’t trade it for the world.