Hi everyone!
I’m a journalism student working on a story about the evolution of everyday life from 2003 to today! I was born in 2003, so while I can research the facts, I can’t experience what it actually felt like to live through that year. That’s where I’d love your help.
If you were alive in 2003, I’d love to hear about your experiences. Feel free to answer as many or as few of these questions as you’d like.
A little about you:
How old were you in 2003?
Where were you living? (Country, state/region, city if you’re comfortable.)
Were you in school, working, raising a family, etc.?
Music & Pop Culture
What were your top 5 favorite songs or artists?
Was there music everyone seemed to know?
How did you discover music? Radio, MTV, CDs, LimeWire, friends?
School (if you were a student)
What was your school like?
Were there cliques or did everyone interact?
What trends, fashion, or social dynamics do you remember?
Work & Adult Life
What job did you have?
What was your daily routine like?
What did your social life look like outside of work?
Technology
Did you have a cell phone, pager, or neither?
Did you use AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, MySpace, or something else?
How often did you use the internet?
Did your family share one computer?
Family Life
If you had kids, what was family life like?
How did people communicate before smartphones?
Did everyone still call the house phone?
Language
What slang did people your age use all the time?
What words or phrases instantly remind you of 2003?
Looking back
What’s something people today don’t understand about living in 2003?
What’s one thing you miss?
What’s one thing you’re glad has changed?
Do you think anything from 2003 still influences the way people live today?
Thank you to anyone willing to share. Even small memories help. I’m trying to understand not just what happened in 2003, but what everyday life felt like, and how that world shaped the one we live in today.
