Life wasn't simpler. It was every bit as complicated and messy as it is now, but with worst technology, and we were just children with simpler minds!
The world is a simple place when you are a simple person who knows nothing about why the world is.

The only Gen X people talking like this are white and straight (and mostly men!).
As a general rule Black people in the US might be nostalgic for musical styles, people we knew, movies, or even a manner of dress, but we don't really long to return to some previous era, or think of those eras as better than they were. For marginalized people those "eras" were always exactly what they are...less than now.

I think this is one of the reasons I don't get nostalgic especially about the past. I was paying attention as a teenager. I saw the complexity of the world, but because I was a child, I didn't and couldn't understand any of of the why! The process of understanding began as an adult.