The only thing I can muster in their defense is that Outlook search is garbage, and filtering in Excel to find relevant messages may have been marginally easier. But that’s playing devil’s advocate and going out on a limb.
It was probably in response to some manager saying it’s not a good idea to keep documented agreements in email, so some genius thought putting those in an Excel and attaching to email was compliant with that idea.
Not being in constant contact with everyone you know, and not having a neverending stream of notifications assaulting you via your phone.
When you got to see relatives who lived far away, you talked about what had been going on in their life because you probably had no idea.
You read, listened to, or watched the news when you wanted to, unless someone you know told you sooner.
If you had to wait somewhere without a book or magazine, you just sat there with your thoughts. During childhood, you learned how to be bored and practice imagining things.