Is mid-forties old enough?
I had a computer, just no internet.

how did you learn to do something?

You didn't.
It was trial and error, ending up with a half-baked solution
and then thinking this was the best solution
or just giving up and no longer bothering.
I can see in older people's other answers
some romanticized version of their past,
but this was the reality.

Sure, there were books in libraries,
but how many books would cover the exact thing that you were looking for of your particular situation?
Very little.

Did access to knowledge change your life, was a constraint lifted when you no longer depended on having found the right books or people to learn tips on how to cook a new dish, or how to fix a plumbing problem, or how to plant a garden?

The big constraint that has been lifted is when you asked a semi-stranger for help,
who were the only ones with that knowledge, you had a 5% chance that
they either thought it was hilarious to just lie to you and keep feeding you with new lies
when you came back and asked why it wasn't working,
and a 50% chance they would just flat out refuse to tell you,
because "not caring is not sharing".

Was life more simple, did you have fewer problems to solve without technology in your life, or did technology make life easier?

Yes. And it has forced people to be more honest to me and everyone else.