"Yeah. I was born and lived before the Internet (in its widespread form) existed."
So you're in-between the age of 40 to 60? Let's say you're 60, born in 1961:
- Your local pop radio station often plays a rock song from your adolescence. The Queen of Pop whose posters adorned your room and so scandalized your grand-parents still sings at the Super Bowl.
- The Star Wars movie you geeked out as a teen/young adult has become a billion dollar franchise your grandkids drag you to
- The ATM you learned to use thirty years ago are still around basically unchanged.
- the quarter the tooth fairy left you as a kid that you found in the tin can of boyhood treasures is still accepted as currency
Compare that to a 60 year old person born in 1820.
They have yet to have seen a train: most people in the world at the time lived their whole lives in their villages far from any railroad. China's first railroad was built in 1875, and quickly dismantled. (China, alone, in the 19th century had between 30 to 38% of the world population)
Most likely this person lives in feudally arranged society. The emancipation of the serfs in Russia was in the mid 1800s, and that was the last of the European countries to remove feudalism.
In the anglo saxon world, women were effective properties of their spouses.
The superiority/inferiority of races was obvious to the learned classes.
Slavery was practiced throughout the world except Europe and then the US.
Homosexuality was punishable by execution most everwhere in the world
Sexual roles were well defined and strictly obeyed according to local customs (i.e. they weren't universal norms, but norms existed universally).
The only way to fly was in a hot air baloon. The only people who ever witnessed this lived in Paris or in London
Steel existed but was extremely expensive and not used for construction. Wrought iron was used instead, and it was a brittle mess that resulted in catastrophes. As a result the buildings in urban areas were typically no more than 6 stories high. Religious buildings were much taller, but projects that took centuries to build.
Communicating with someone across the Atlantic took weeks.
Now, let's say our hypothetical person living in 1880 and born in 1820 lived another 60 years.
The airplane is invented and used to devastating effect in multiple wars
The automobile is invented, and by 1940 mass produced.
Throughout the world, therefore, buses provide transport to remote area that aren't serviceable by rail
Skyscrapers pop up.
A world war has impacted most people in the world. A new one has just started.
A communist society exists and has mechanized death killing millions.
Telecommunication, first by wired-telegraph, then by wireless telegraph, and finally by radio exists and enables instant communication across the globe. The most remote villages can receive the BBC world service, often in their native language.
Our gentleman most likely wouldn't be aware of this development but classical physics has been shattered, the concept of time turned upside down. The atomic era has also begun, but most people will be blissfully unaware for another 5 years.
Penicillin is about to revolutionize life expectancy.
I think this person born in 1820 would be very uncomfortable if living today.