The world of most teenagers today revolves around streaks, likes, and retweets. What did teenagers’ lives revolve around when their parents were teens?

The world of fashion is always changing. Powell High School Principal Mr. James Kuhn, who graduated in the 1970s, said denim and bell bottoms were “in” at that time.

“It was kind of interesting. I was in a pretty small community, pretty conservative community. So we didn’t get to wear jeans to school until I was a senior in high school,” Mr. Kuhn said. “You had to have dress pants when you went to school every day and so my senior year when we got to wear blue jeans, that was a big step. That was the same time bell bottoms were kind of a big deal and there was different sized bell bottoms some of them just gigantic.”

On to the 1980s, a decade social studies teacher Mrs. Ashley Hildebrand described as full of sweaters and color..

“Big Sweaters, kind of baggy clothes on top and we would wear our sweaters backwards. We had V-neck sweaters and we would wear them backwards,” Mrs. Hildebrand said. “Shoulder pads were in back then too and bright colors definitely.”

The ’90s were all about loud speakers and good music.

“We used to wear slouch socks, layered slouch socks,” biology teacher Mrs. Lenita Moore said.. “Obviously the big hair, the bigger the better.”

As the 2000s hit fashion trends were slowly fading as more and more people dressed their own unique way.

“A lot of big belts, like belts were definitely a thing,” said English teacher Miss Bailey Jackson.

Can any person nowadays imagine a day without the constant distraction of Snapchat? These teachers sure can.

“Most everybody in school that had telephones, you were on a party line, which means you shared that line with 4-5 other families,” Mr. Kuhn said. “Sometimes when you would pick up the phone to make a phone call, if you wanted to call your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your buddy to see what was going to be going on, there may be somebody else talking on there and you had to wait until they were finished talking before you could make a call.”

FACS teacher Mrs. Kandi Bennett, who graduated in the ’80s, said talking on the phone could be a privacy issue.

“We had a landline and I can remember trying to go around the corner when I’d talk on the phone like if someone called in the evening and my parents and everyone were sitting right there,” Mrs. Bennett said. “You were careful about what was said because it was usually where my family could hear, I can’t remember ever having a private time to talk on the phone.”

In the ‘90s not much changed, according to Spanish teacher Mr. Brandon Preator.

“We only had telephones; there was no email, there was no cell phone,” Mr. Preator said. “Landline phone numbers were all we had to communicate.”

As the 2000s emerged so did flip phones and a little bit of texting.

“There wasn’t a lot of texting, [but] there was some, like I remember I finally got my first cell phone, it was a flip phone, when I was a junior in high school,” Ms. Jackson said. “Mostly when I talked to my parents it was mostly calling I guess instead of texting.”

Manners towards adults differ from teen to teen..

“It was a lot stricter with how you talked to adults. I think a lot of that had to do with just about your whole family. Grandpas and grandmas, uncles and aunts all lived within 20 or 30 miles or you,” Mr. Kuhn said. “If my uncle saw me doing something stupid, he’d come over and let me know that, that wasn’t acceptable, so you had a lot more people watching you and a lot more people willing to correct you.”

Mrs. Bennett said when it comes to manner, it’s about expectations.

“I think it’s the same really, I think families that expect manners, those kids have always had good manners. If manners aren’t expected or maybe even taught, but I think we see very respectful kids nowadays just like back in my days there were kids that were respectful and kids that weren’t,” Mrs. Bennett said. “So I think that’s something that comes from families and if you expect that in families that’s going to go on for generations and generations regardless of what’s happening.”

The manners in terms of respect towards the adults in the 90’s were a bit different.

“Definitely better than they are now, definitely more respectful. We were respectful of all adults, whether we even knew who they were,” Mrs. Moore said.

Teens’ manners today compared to teens in the 2000’s have not changed that much.

“I think it would pretty similar to what you see today. The biggest difference would be there were fewer cell phones, so like there were some, but like nowadays you walk in a room and literally everyone is like on their phone,” Ms. Jackson said. “That didn’t happen quite as much. I mean you could see it was starting to happen but not nearly as much. But other than that pretty similar I would say.”

Throughout history conflicts between teenagers have been recurring.

“We still had problems with people getting along with people,” Mr. Kuhn said. “Because I think you had to talk face to face to people, I think a lot of times between girls and boys and girls and girls there maybe wasn’t as many mean things said because you had to look somebody in the eye when you told them.”

Not much changed in the’ 80s; you still had to look someone in the eye.

“Same thing, I think I see the same things obviously we didn’t have the online stuff, like we didn’t even have to deal with you know cyberbullying,” Mrs. Hildebrand said. “If you had an issue with somebody usually you either had it out or you got in a fight.”

Mr. Preator compared how teens treated each other in the’ 90s versus today.

“I don’t know that a lot has changed as far as like how people treat each other I think in general, I came from a small community so there was, everybody knew each other, everybody was not necessarily friends,” Mr. Preator said. “I think if we would have had cell phones in my day you would have seen a lot of the same stuff, because I think those interactions between kids are the same it’s just now with all these different outlets and different ways to communication and to be able to hide behind a screen, kids say things that you know they wouldn’t.”

And The 2000s were pretty similar to today.

“… You’re always going to have bullying and that kind of stuff,” Ms. Jackson said. “I do know that like online bullying and that kind of stuff wasn’t as prevalent as it is today. I mean because Facebook was just getting started when I was in high school and so that kind of like cyberbullying didn’t quite happen.”

As the world goes from generation to generation teens keep changing. Many of the teachers had this to say about their teenage years, “They were simple.”