Young people get their ideas of the past from movies, shows, music, and stories. But what do they get wrong? This Ask Reddit thread attempts to answer that question by giving Baby Boomers, and older people in general the chance to explain what young folks just don't understand about life in the olden days. How did people survive without smartphones, the internet, video games, and all the rest? The answer is just fine. 

A prevailing theme of this thread is childhood, namely how children spent most of their time, and how they were treated by adults. According to many answers, children were allowed and expected to fill their free time on their own, with little input or supervision from their parents. Kids were told to go outside and play, and they did for hours on end until dinner time. Parents didn't know where their kids were, and they didn't care. But get home late, and you could expect a good old-fashioned whooping. 

Smoking and general health were another theme. Young people will just never quite understand the pervasiveness of smoking, and how there was not one public space where you could avoid it. Even airplanes.

But above all, life was not a movie. Just because the media likes to portray the '80s as "colorful," doesn't mean they were. People were, and will always be just people.