Famous "Can you Remember where you were when?" events.
As we've grown up and as our parents grew up and as our Grannies and Grandads grew up occasionally some BIG thing would happen which lots of them/us would witness en masse.
Let me just clarify here - it was usually a bad thing and is only really relevant to the generations I've suggested because prior to radio, tv and then the net witnessing some horrible 'thing' en masse was probably confined to watching Jimmy the Village Idiot getting trampled by cows. Or something.
So lets look back shall we?

Moon landing - Didn't happen.
Two points here - how much it costs for Ariane to carry per kilo into space. Today.
Also - with the way the Merkins celebrate their heros, if Ronnie can be President & Arnie can make Governor of California then Neil Armstrong should've been KING OF THE WORLD by now.

JFK getting shot. That must have been one very crowded Grassy Knoll. Amazing with all the jostling that anyone got a shot off! And also thanks Jack Ruby for providing so many tv courtroom dramas with so many tidy but poignant endings.

John Lennon getting shot. I remember my mum crying. I really think that Mark Chapman was actually waiting to shoot Yoko. Then we would have had less to endure from The Plastic Yoko Band, 'Orange' or Julian Lennon.

Kurt Cobain spraying the ceiling with his brains. Got famous quickly and then unfortunately fucked and impregnated a fame-whore junky groupie.
If your life was mapped out being physically/emotionally/biologically connected to Courtney Love what do you think your approach might be?

Diana - I could write pages. But suffice to say - hooning down a Parisian tunnel, in a Merc driven by a drunk with your incredibly rich Arab boyfriend & being chased by members of the SAS dressed up as paparazzi probably isn't the wisest of moves.

Sept the 11th, 2001.
I guess this was our generations "watch in horror" moment. It's just that after watching planes flying into buildings and the two towers then collapsing hundreds of times got a bit... well boring. And the only channel not running anything else was ABC2 with Play School and BooBah.

The London Bombings were much the same in terms of media saturation. At least the armed services of the Met. managed to shoot a suspicious Brazilian student with a back-pack full of .... his homework.
EDIT: Since this is a mostly pommie based site I will say, no disrespect intended towards anyone affected by the bombings.
Aside from the fit bird that Albert Marshmallow gave a lift to on his scooter.

I reckon our kids haven't yet had too many events like this to deal with.
Aside from Miley Cyrus twerking some bloke at a music awards. EDIT: And maybe some Middle East dictatorship showering their not-so-thankful citizens with some "directly in contravention of several world-wide conventions (that they didn't sign)" chemical weapons.

As my daughter said - "Meh, I'll watch it on youtube later."

tl;dr? - The past just (thankfully) had less media coverage.
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Wed 4 Sep 2013, 7:39, 10 replies)

It has been identified as a major source
of stress that anyone up to and including our parents didn't have to deal with.

Especially in the developed world. Bad news overload. We know about Syrians being gassed long before most Syrians hear about it.

I very purposely plan a break from it when I take a holiday - for the time I'm off, I avoid TV, email and any other source of news. If anything important happens, I figure someone will phone me.
(username failed moderation, Wed 4 Sep 2013, 8:19, closed)

I used to follow that sort of regime.
Until Kanye interrupted Taylor Swift to tell the world about how good Beyonce is.

But yes, srsly - I agree.
How fucking long does it take your inbox to load tho once you've got home and fired the beast up?
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Wed 4 Sep 2013, 8:34, closed)

If I'm out for more than a few days,
Whatever is in my inbox gets shitcanned when I get back. All my mails are delivered to someone else while I'm out anyway, anything important will have been dealt with.

Hopefully.

When I'm on hols, I make it clear if I'm going to be disturbed, it'd better be for a good reason. Nobody has ever had a problem with that.
(username failed moderation, Wed 4 Sep 2013, 9:45, closed)

I get all my news of The Today Programme, on Radio 4,
which ensures that I arrive at work chock full of righteous anger. Occasionally, I listen to music instead, then arrive feeling fairly happy.

Forgive me, I can't for the life of me think what point I was trying to make. Maybe I should just call you out over your claims that the moon landing was faked? JFK conspiracy theorists can take a running jump, too.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Wed 4 Sep 2013, 9:24, closed)

Oh mm.
Don't believe the hype.
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Wed 4 Sep 2013, 11:12, closed)

Chemtrails have clouded my mind.
Blue pill all the way, for me.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Wed 4 Sep 2013, 11:22, closed)

I thought
he was an electrician.
(dchurch bah, Wed 4 Sep 2013, 9:51, closed)

Furry muff.
At least they could've charged him.

Sorry.
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Wed 4 Sep 2013, 11:10, closed)

Of course the fucking moon landings happened.

(Frank Snow, Wed 4 Sep 2013, 17:18, closed)

You have to remember that he's really really really fucking thick.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Wed 4 Sep 2013, 17:50, closed)