Life before mobile phones and the internet comes back to me most clearly through one ordinary scene: my mother picking up the landline in the evening to call a wake-up service.
“For 3324334, at four thirty, thank you,” she would say. She gave the telephone number, requested a time and ended the call. The next morning, the phone would ring. Considering how many things we now arrange through a single screen, that brief conversation feels like a memory from a much more distant time.
These are a few of my memories of growing up in Yugoslavia during the 1990s: the household telephone, school, stories passed between pupils, and computers gradually becoming part of the world around us. Details that barely deserved a second thought at the time have become some of the most interesting parts of the story.
The Telephone Call That Arranged Our Morning Wake-Up
My mother’s call has stayed in my mind almost like a short scene with a beginning and an ending. The wake-up was arranged in the evening, and the telephone rang early the next morning. For the adults, it marked the start of work and responsibilities. For me, school came later, with everything an ordinary school day could bring.
The wake-up service was simply something we used. I remember that little conversation as a familiar part of life at home. Nobody was thinking about how unusual it might sound years later to explain that we booked a morning telephone call to wake us up.
Today, I can set an alarm in a few seconds. Yet when I think about that period, I hear my mother’s words first, followed by the telephone ringing. Those sounds hold the memory more clearly than any broad description of life in the 1990s.
School Without Mobile Phones Still Had Plenty of Distractions
In the late 1990s, we did not sit in lessons with phones in our hands. There were no messages to check beneath the desk, and nobody was recording every classroom incident. We still found plenty of ways to distract ourselves.
Some teachers kept a firm grip on the room. We sat quietly, and few pupils tried to cause trouble. Other lessons had a completely different atmosphere. Mathematics stands out in my memory as a class where things sometimes got thoroughly out of hand.
Paper balls flew across the classroom, chalk ended up everywhere, and jokes became more interesting than whatever we were supposed to be learning. At those moments, the lesson felt like an extended break. We thought it was funny, although I can now imagine how difficult it must have been for the teacher to get any teaching done.
Those incidents are part of my childhood, but looking back, I would not describe all of them as harmless. A few minutes of entertainment for us could disrupt an entire lesson for somebody else. I can remember the laughter while also recognising how little we considered that at the time.
Stories from Other Classes Became School Legends
Alongside things we experienced ourselves, there were stories about other classes and teachers. Some were repeated so often that it became difficult to separate what had happened from details added along the way.
We heard about one mathematics teacher who supposedly remained calm whatever his pupils did. According to the story, they gradually moved their desks closer to him during the lesson, while some wrote with chalk on the back of his jacket. He was said to have barely reacted.
I was not there and cannot confirm every detail. What I remember is hearing the story and passing it on, amazed that something like that could happen. At the time, it sounded unbelievable and funny. Today, there is an uncomfortable side to it too: pupils turning a teacher’s patience into entertainment.
Stories like that travelled from pupil to pupil. We had no recording to check. There was somebody’s account, followed by another retelling. That is how I remember them: as school stories, with all the uncertainty that comes with them.
My First Encounters with Computers and Dial-Up Internet
My memories of the late 1990s also include my first encounters with computers. The sound of a dial-up modem is particularly vivid: crackling, beeping and waiting for the connection to succeed. Connecting was an event in itself, far more noticeable than a device quietly joining a network today.
I also remember installing Windows from floppy disks. Something that now feels almost routine seemed like a small technical adventure. Computers introduced a new kind of curiosity, while the internet was beginning to find a place in the everyday life I remember.
These are memories of my own introduction to the technology. Other people encountered home computers much earlier or later. In my recollection of that period, school and friends outside still occupy much more space than time spent online.
Life Before Mobile Phones and the Internet After School
After school, we went outside, played in the street and often stayed until dark. I remember that part of the day differently from the classroom. Lessons ended, but spending time together continued through play.
I have written separately about the games we played before smartphones and the internet. Here, what matters most to me is that ordinary transition from school into the afternoon, when the friends around us were enough to get something started.
Most afternoons probably passed without anything remarkable happening. I have forgotten many of them. What remains is a handful of scenes, an argument, some laughter and a feeling for how the day unfolded. Together, those fragments form a picture of childhood that no single event could explain.
What Has Stayed with Me from Those Days?
Phones and the internet have brought plenty of useful things, from easier arrangements to the ability to find people, information and old recordings. Their absence did not automatically make us more attentive pupils or better friends. One of those mathematics lessons is enough to remind me of that.
Still, life before mobile phones and the internet has a recognisable rhythm in my memory: the evening wake-up request, the morning telephone call, classroom incidents and afternoons outside. Familiar household scenes belong to that picture too, including those explored in my article about watching cartoons on a CRT television.
The ordinary details mean the most to me. My mother’s brief words over the telephone say more about that time than a claim that we all had more attention or fewer worries. I did not know I was remembering anything special. It was simply another day.
Which ordinary detail brings that period back for you: a telephone wake-up call, a particular school lesson, the sound of a modem or an afternoon spent outside? Share your memory in the comments.