"They have tons of tools..."

My son is in his high school's robotics team. They have tons of tools to build robots to compete, including a big machine that cuts sheets of metal based on what digital file you send it. I'd have loved to have had that. When I was in high school, the most advanced tool I had access to was a dot matrix printer. (I wowed my classmates with my complex report covers made with WordArt and highly pixelated graphics.)

TechyDad

"The idea that once you left the house..."

Probably cell phones. The ability to call or text an individual to find out where they are was a revolution but wasn't widespread until I was in college.

Used to have to call their parents house and hope they were there.

The idea that once you left the house you were just in a communication black hole until you returned or actively called someone from a pay phone is a big change from the modern day.

You had to make plans the day or morning before, and then if anything happened to derail those plans the whole thing was just a failure.

jonfitt

"Personally..."

Personally, having come from high school in the 90s when we did have internet but it was more of a novelty - Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is one of the greatest repositories of human knowledge and you can see the sources. It would have been amazing for it to have been built out to where it is now while I was in high school.

MafaldaDover

"I have so few..."

Digital photography. I have so few pictures of friends and good times we had during high school because no one carried around a camera and bothered to get film developed. Of the ones we did have, most are long gone with no negatives to get them reproduced.

The-Doo-Dah-Man

"I had to carry around..."

MP3 players/Spotify and the like. I had to carry around my Discman on my long walk home from school, even with anti-skip it would still buffer every now and then. Don't get me started on batteries too. Nowadays it's so easy to listen to anything at any time, back then it wasn't.

TheRealReapz

"And it seemed to make..."

I'm in college as an older person at the moment, and honestly? I wish I had the social dynamics lol.

I was eating lunch and I heard two guys talking to each other and he was showing his friend something on his phone and he was like "Bro, she's beautiful I can totally see you guys together."

And it seemed to make the other guy really happy. I don't know if he was maybe feeling insecure about how he looks or whatever.. But you could tell it meant a bit to him.

It just seems less cliquey. Less "every man for themselves".

I'm sure there's plenty of assholes, obviously. But just generally kids seem really nice and smart these days.

sepremey

"If my project file size was too big..."

A USB drive. If my project file size was too big, I had to carry like 5 floppy disks to school and spend entire home room and half of first period printing.

politicaldan

"When I was at school..."

Better building and facilities. When I was at school the place was falling apart and a couple of years after I left they knocked it down and rebuilt it with a state of the art media centre and technology and design department with 3D printers and Solidworks cad workstations.

BiffChildFromBangor

"It sounds cheesy..."

So this isn't a tangible thing I wish I had, but I have a 14-year-old son and the one thing that I really admire about him and his entire friend group is that they are so open with their feelings with one another. It sounds cheesy, but it seems like kids in this current generation are much more okay with letting each other know they care. There's just an openness with them all that I find refreshing. It's something that I didn't experience in my sad-goth-staring-out-the-window late '90s high school days, and I really love it about all those kids.

queenofthemild

"But the benefits..."

Nearly endless information at my fingertips.

There is so much information out there about how to be a better person and live a better life (how to videos, grooming tips, relationship advice, etc), safety and wellness like like learning that suicide or domestic abuse hotlines exist, communities for marginalized and minority people, and information that make us better understand the world around us.

Yeah, there is a dark side of false information, merchandising, unrealistic expectations ala Instagram influencers and porn, etc. But the benefits greatly outweigh those aspects.

I went to high school in the late 80s, BTW.

HanEyeAm