Back then people were smarter with long form communication because it’s all they really had. The Lincoln-Douglas debates went on for hours with everyone on the edge of their seat, and they all engaged with it at the time after as a casual thing to do.

Nowadays, most people have few moments where they’re not consuming some kind of drivel. Novels back then used to have untold depths because someone might only have a handful of books that they might read dozens of times over the years.

Kids back then were also raised by adults, not other children. They worked from an early age too because everybody had to help out. We’ve really fallen quite a bit since then. Now most kids are raised by other children and iPads and public school teachers being forced to teach a bunch of Common Core nonsense.