I don't want to look up nanny state, I want to hear personal experiences.
(I'm not trying to negate you, I really am curious as to how some people feel their freedoms are being affected.)
I guess one thing that makes me feel 'restricted', now that I think of it, its not being able to camp out in the woods without lacing someone's palm with silver. It has, however, been that was as long as I can remember. I suspect you can get away with it, though, so long as you're crafty about it.
Most are quality of life issue's. A few examples....
So many things as a kid I could do but no more.
I see freedoms dissappear with peoples choices in foods. Such as the banning of saturated fats in restaurants. Toys with meals for the young uns.
The businesses who can no longer provide a means of free choice for consumers who now have to purchase their own means of conveyance from the store to their car.
People who cannot choose their own doctors anymore.
The free carrying of firearms that now requires permits and licenses.
The loss of property rights to do whatever you want with your own land and house.
Smokers who have no public place of their choosing to smoke inside.
They may look trivial, people sometimes mock them, but the legal mechanisms behind it all are most certainly not trivial.
On a broader scale you are now open to rampant warrantless surveillance and interventions both govt and private without a means of recourse.
Free speech is relegated to 'zones' or 'designated forums'.
I live in a society of mandates now, not established rule of law.
Kids are now handcuffed and treated as adults and families are prone to rearing their own children by state mandate rather then traditionally by themselves.
There's more but these are just a few off the top of my head.
There's not much left to be enjoyed anymore.
You tend to notice what's missing as you age and look back into time. People born later probably wont notice the degradation until generations later and make comparisons of what they could do in the past and what they can't do presently.
My whole point is we are being more and more restricted as a society. Bit by bit like a frog being slowly boiled to death in water.