Do you occasionally or regularly miss your pre-internet life?

[saddu_writer]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

@vickiespencer http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/spree

[vickiespencer]

@vickiespencer http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/spree

Thank you, I looked it up. I knew what a spree was, but I thought it might have had a special meaning in forum speak. Because like @offlinehelpers I have spent most of my life pre-internet. I read once that people born after 1976 or 1977 were internet natives while those of us born before then were internet immigrants or some other such term.

[mgjohn78]

I’ve been using computers since I was like 4 so I don’t know what it’s like without it lol

I was 6 and my computer had a powerful cpu 0.00325 GHZ and 1kb Ram. That was way before the internet though!

[vickiespencer]

Happiness is in the air of your country.

Actually, it’s hunting season at the moment and the air is thick with the sounds of gunshots as the locals attempt to massacre anything with feathers. It’ll be nice again in about month when any and all birdlife has been duly annihilated and the coast will have chance to descend into peaceful, albeit eerie silence for another six months.

It is hunting season in Montana too, only a lot more than the birds must hide or be shot or arrowed as the case may be.

[rankinfinite]

I’m old enough to remember rotary phones. To answer your question, no, I don’t miss it.

The Internet liberated us from boring dinners, tedious queues, boring road trips, buying dirty magazines at the store, annoying shopping trips when it’s raining or we’re not in the mood, the horrors of going to a bar and hitting on strangers, etc.

Our pre-internet life meant remember phone numbers or writing them down an agenda, using the maps on white pages to find an address, typing on a typewriter or computer, paying for vide games (OK, I still do that because a PS4 is awesome), putting up with TV commercials (unless you had premium channels), spending thousands of dollars printing and sending your portfolios all over the country (that only applies to art directors, copywriters, photographers, etc), faxing resumes, etc.

We were used to it, but that doesn’t mean we liked it.

The feel on the finger while dialing through a rotary phone was fun.

The dinners are rarely boring, I agree with the queues part, road trips are quite enjoyable most of the times, meeting somebody you know and respect at the store buying those dirty magazines can be quite thrilling, shopping trips are always fun.

Remembering phone numbers used to act as a nice and efficient check for your long and short-term memory, local search websites are not as much fun and accurate as the White Pages, the video games were utterly boring back then.

[fastcopywriter]

boring dinners, tedious queues, boring road trips, buying dirty magazines at the store, annoying shopping trips when it’s raining or we’re not in the mood, the horrors of going to a bar and hitting on strangers, etc.

The only bit I agree with here is the queues bit. I would be nothing without my weekly horror of going to a bar and hitting on strangers. I’ve used an app once to potentially hook up with someone and they just annoyed me. I too remember rotary phones and using a typewriter would be awkward.

I do prefer the old ways of human interaction though.

The only bit I agree with here is the queues bit

Do you remember having dinners in restaurants with your extended family, and being bored out of your mind because they’re talking about things a kid doesn’t understand? I do. At least kids today have smartphones they can play with. Back then, we had to use our imaginations, turn the forks into ballerinas, whatever.

[fastcopywriter]

Thank you, I looked it up. I knew what a spree was, but I thought it might have had a special meaning in forum speak. Because like @offlinehelpers I have spent most of my life pre-internet. I read once that people born after 1976 or 1977 were internet natives while those of us born before then were internet immigrants or some other such term.

I read once that people born after 1976 or 1977 were internet natives

Not quite. I was born in 1975, if you watch the TV show Halt and Catch Fire, that’s what we lived with dialup connections, typing commands, the internet was mostly a nerd domain back then.

It’s millennials who grew up with the internet, people born from 1985 and even 1990. I’m generation X, we’re a transition generation.

[rankinfinite]

I read once that people born after 1976 or 1977 were internet natives

Not quite. I was born in 1975, if you watch the TV show Halt and Catch Fire, that’s what we lived with dialup connections, typing commands, the internet was mostly a nerd domain back then.

It’s millennials who grew up with the internet, people born from 1985 and even 1990. I’m generation X, we’re a transition generation.

It’s millennials who grew up with the internet, people born from 1985 and even 1990

I was born in 1991, and was among the first ones to have an internet connection at home in January 2007. I used to live in of the richest neighborhoods of my town back then.

Here in India, I would say the people born from 1996 should be considered the ones who grew up with the internet.

[vickiespencer]

I read once that people born after 1976 or 1977 were internet natives

Not quite. I was born in 1975, if you watch the TV show Halt and Catch Fire, that’s what we lived with dialup connections, typing commands, the internet was mostly a nerd domain back then.

It’s millennials who grew up with the internet, people born from 1985 and even 1990. I’m generation X, we’re a transition generation.

I misspoke. It is Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. People born after a particular year find it easier to use technology than people born before it was developed.

[fonthaunt]

I was 6 and my computer had a powerful cpu 0.00325 GHZ and 1kb Ram. That was way before the internet though!

I got my first computer in 1985 or 1986 when I was about 20 years old. It was a Commodore 64 and the programs ran on cassette tapes. It had no connection to get online at all. Perhaps a year or two later I got a 300 baud modem (that’s painfully slow) to connect to a sort of “online” via telephone cord (RJ11) but there still wasn’t anything called internet that was known to civilians. I used it to log on to a bulletin board service at a local community college and began to participate in my first forums. It was totally awesome and I never looked backwards.

I feel nostalgic about rotary phones and walking through my house with a 25 foot curly phone cord to talk to friends. I remember black and white televisions with a dial that went from channel 1-13 if you turned the dial. A coat hanger served as the antenna to get free broadcast TV although nothing was actually showing on most of the channels. I remember TV dinners that came in metal trays and were heated in the oven for an hour to get a gross little frozen meal. My first gaming console was an Atari 2600 and it had Pong on it, which was pretty fun until Pac-Man blew it away in the arcade.

I look back on all that with some fond recollection, but I far prefer today’s online shopping, self-checkout at the grocery, ATM machines and debit cards, smart phones and Kindles. I guess it runs in my family, though. My mother is about to turn 80 and she uses Adobe Photoshop on her computer every day. She used to do oil painting but once she found digital art, she was totally into it. 🙂

[fastcopywriter]

I misspoke. It is Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. People born after a particular year find it easier to use technology than people born before it was developed.

I misspoke. It is Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. People born after a particular year find it easier to use technology than people born before it was developed.

It’s an interesting argument. As Gen-X I’m between two worlds, I love e-mail, I wanted all my bosses to communicate by e-mail, but those ruffians insisted on face to face meetings, taking notes, and the usual nonsense. Or they would make me waste paper by insisting I print everything and proof it with a pen.

On the other hand, I hate texting my niece and nephew because they hate picking up the phone. I hate texting, hate multitasking, having having to watch TV, pause it, and answer a text. Of course, my nephew does it all at the same time which makes me cringe.

[fastcopywriter]

It’s millennials who grew up with the internet, people born from 1985 and even 1990

I was born in 1991, and was among the first ones to have an internet connection at home in January 2007. I used to live in of the richest neighborhoods of my town back then.

Here in India, I would say the people born from 1996 should be considered the ones who grew up with the internet.

It is truly amazing how many Indians became network engineers, computer developers, etc. As far as I know, this wasn’t planned by the government, it just happened naturally.

[rankinfinite]

It is truly amazing how many Indians became network engineers, computer developers, etc. As far as I know, this wasn’t planned by the government, it just happened naturally.

As far as I know, this wasn’t planned by the government, it just happened naturally.

Neither planned by the government, nor happened naturally, it was “planned by the parents”. 😜

[negiservice]

Internet is my life xD

[cyaxrex]

I got my first computer in 1985 or 1986 when I was about 20 years old. It was a Commodore 64 and the programs ran on cassette tapes. It had no connection to get online at all. Perhaps a year or two later I got a 300 baud modem (that’s painfully slow) to connect to a sort of “online” via telephone cord (RJ11) but there still wasn’t anything called internet that was known to civilians. I used it to log on to a bulletin board service at a local community college and began to participate in my first forums. It was totally awesome and I never looked backwards.

I feel nostalgic about rotary phones and walking through my house with a 25 foot curly phone cord to talk to friends. I remember black and white televisions with a dial that went from channel 1-13 if you turned the dial. A coat hanger served as the antenna to get free broadcast TV although nothing was actually showing on most of the channels. I remember TV dinners that came in metal trays and were heated in the oven for an hour to get a gross little frozen meal. My first gaming console was an Atari 2600 and it had Pong on it, which was pretty fun until Pac-Man blew it away in the arcade.

I look back on all that with some fond recollection, but I far prefer today’s online shopping, self-checkout at the grocery, ATM machines and debit cards, smart phones and Kindles. I guess it runs in my family, though. My mother is about to turn 80 and she uses Adobe Photoshop on her computer every day. She used to do oil painting but once she found digital art, she was totally into it. 🙂

I look back on all that with some fond recollection, but I far prefer today’s online shopping, self-checkout at the grocery, ATM machines and debit cards,

The only scary thing is that most of these systems are still running XP!

I hate it when I go to an ATM and realize that it is out of service because of a XP desktop staring back at me. It makes me think that for as fancy as our apps and Internet of things looks on the outside, the infrastructure of our technological lives could crumble in a second with the sudden rise from the ashes of the blue wall of death!

[rankinfinite]

I got my first computer in 1985 or 1986 when I was about 20 years old. It was a Commodore 64 and the programs ran on cassette tapes. It had no connection to get online at all. Perhaps a year or two later I got a 300 baud modem (that’s painfully slow) to connect to a sort of “online” via telephone cord (RJ11) but there still wasn’t anything called internet that was known to civilians. I used it to log on to a bulletin board service at a local community college and began to participate in my first forums. It was totally awesome and I never looked backwards.

I feel nostalgic about rotary phones and walking through my house with a 25 foot curly phone cord to talk to friends. I remember black and white televisions with a dial that went from channel 1-13 if you turned the dial. A coat hanger served as the antenna to get free broadcast TV although nothing was actually showing on most of the channels. I remember TV dinners that came in metal trays and were heated in the oven for an hour to get a gross little frozen meal. My first gaming console was an Atari 2600 and it had Pong on it, which was pretty fun until Pac-Man blew it away in the arcade.

I look back on all that with some fond recollection, but I far prefer today’s online shopping, self-checkout at the grocery, ATM machines and debit cards, smart phones and Kindles. I guess it runs in my family, though. My mother is about to turn 80 and she uses Adobe Photoshop on her computer every day. She used to do oil painting but once she found digital art, she was totally into it. 🙂

I feel nostalgic about rotary phones and walking through my house with a 25 foot curly phone cord to talk to friends

Playing with the rotary phones’ cord and dial was extreme fun as a kid for me too. I would love to have one now but can’t afford it. Saw a seller selling stunning rotary phones from USD 190 to 275 in my country. Quite expensive!

I guess it runs in my family, though. My mother is about to turn 80 and she uses Adobe Photoshop on her computer every day. She used to do oil painting but once she found digital art, she was totally into it.

My family’s above 30 ladies are all busy forwarding the messages on a free phone messenger all the time. The messages they don’t themselves read most of the times. If they did, they wouldn’t find much time to send them, I think. It looks like they have found an employment in that company for forwarding messages. It is so annoying and surprising to see that they don’t realize it.

The phone keeps buzzing all the time because of those silly non-sense messages which they have never read themselves.

[everfae]

I’m quite young, so I got on the internet pretty early in life, while I was still a kid.

In fact there’s not much I miss pre-internet, because I don’t remember a lot but I wish I was born a little earlier so I could have had a good chunk of my life without it.
Although I do remember “borrowing” my brothers walkman now and then… but Spotify > everything else

[vickiespencer]

I misspoke. It is Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. People born after a particular year find it easier to use technology than people born before it was developed.

It’s an interesting argument. As Gen-X I’m between two worlds, I love e-mail, I wanted all my bosses to communicate by e-mail, but those ruffians insisted on face to face meetings, taking notes, and the usual nonsense. Or they would make me waste paper by insisting I print everything and proof it with a pen.

On the other hand, I hate texting my niece and nephew because they hate picking up the phone. I hate texting, hate multitasking, having having to watch TV, pause it, and answer a text. Of course, my nephew does it all at the same time which makes me cringe.

I 😍 texting! It is the primary way I keep in touch with my family when we are not together. I like the fact that if my husband, children, grandchildren, sisters or nieces, and nephews are busy, they can read my message when they have time yet I can text them at any moment without interrupting what they are doing. I also love it because we can be in different homes in different towns and still communicate about the current game that is on the TV.

I have a sister who is younger than I am and she will not enter the digital world except to send e-mails. I wish she would text. She and her husband still have the kind of phone that hangs on the wall, not even a cordless. No cell phones for her.

[newsmike]

Happiness is in the air of your country.

Actually, it’s hunting season at the moment and the air is thick with the sounds of gunshots as the locals attempt to massacre anything with feathers. It’ll be nice again in about month when any and all birdlife has been duly annihilated and the coast will have chance to descend into peaceful, albeit eerie silence for another six months.

the air is thick with the sounds of gunshots

That’s just a weekend in Chicago here in the states.

[cyaxrex]

the air is thick with the sounds of gunshots

That’s just a weekend in Chicago here in the states.

I’ve heard that. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything good about Chicago aside from pizza reviews. Detroit is up there as well, of course, on the Tripadvisor doom and possibly deadly scale. At least with Detroit, though, you kind of expected that the city would end up that way because of the way it was depicted in the old Robocop movies.

I don’t mean this offensively by the way. Also, I would personally still prefer to try my life chances somewhere like Chicago rather than most places in my own home country. At least, for the most part, you Americans still have spirit. That and big old other places to float away to if you ever feel like hitting the road.

[gig_freak]

Interesting thread. I had an old computer back in the days, it was 4-5 years older than me. At that time having a computer in my country was considered a luxury (late 90’s through the early 00’s). I remember the first game that I ever played on that computer was a crappy pirated PC port of Super Mario Bros, then I installed Jazz JackRabbit, which was DOPE game for a 4 years old kiddo. I did have some 56kpbs dial-up connection, but it was really expensive to use it, I have used it only 2-3 times in a span of 10-years to check my MSN. However, my parents were using it more often as they had important e-mails to read.

My first console was the good ole Playstation 1, with the classic gray controller and Twisted Metal IV. It was modded version, so I was able to purchase games at the local dealers for $2. 🙂

I never had a real job (except an internship at a local advertising agency which I hated). Well, I can say that I have spent a lot of hours in front of a computer screen.

[mariokluser]

Japan is on the right track :3

IMG_0516.0.jpg1020×680 81 KB

Somehow they are always on the right track.

[woofy31]

Interesting thread. I had an old computer back in the days, it was 4-5 years older than me. At that time having a computer in my country was considered a luxury (late 90’s through the early 00’s). I remember the first game that I ever played on that computer was a crappy pirated PC port of Super Mario Bros, then I installed Jazz JackRabbit, which was DOPE game for a 4 years old kiddo. I did have some 56kpbs dial-up connection, but it was really expensive to use it, I have used it only 2-3 times in a span of 10-years to check my MSN. However, my parents were using it more often as they had important e-mails to read.

My first console was the good ole Playstation 1, with the classic gray controller and Twisted Metal IV. It was modded version, so I was able to purchase games at the local dealers for $2. 🙂

I never had a real job (except an internship at a local advertising agency which I hated). Well, I can say that I have spent a lot of hours in front of a computer screen.

My first console was the good ole Playstation 1

You were rich 😅

My first console was an old Atari 2600

My second and last console was a Sega Genesis

I used to have tons of cassettes and trade them with school mates, then Lego happened…

But then I got my first Game Boy

800px-Game-Boy-FL.png800×970

And then high school happened, and I got my first computer with dial-up, but I barely managed to acquire a connection a couple of times per week :crazy_face: )

Those were the good times… and the DOS times, the lovely Windows 95… sigh 😦

[ssj1236]

Interesting thread. I had an old computer back in the days, it was 4-5 years older than me. At that time having a computer in my country was considered a luxury (late 90’s through the early 00’s). I remember the first game that I ever played on that computer was a crappy pirated PC port of Super Mario Bros, then I installed Jazz JackRabbit, which was DOPE game for a 4 years old kiddo. I did have some 56kpbs dial-up connection, but it was really expensive to use it, I have used it only 2-3 times in a span of 10-years to check my MSN. However, my parents were using it more often as they had important e-mails to read.

My first console was the good ole Playstation 1, with the classic gray controller and Twisted Metal IV. It was modded version, so I was able to purchase games at the local dealers for $2. 🙂

I never had a real job (except an internship at a local advertising agency which I hated). Well, I can say that I have spent a lot of hours in front of a computer screen.

I never had a real job (except an internship at a local advertising agency which I hated). Well, I can say that I have spent a lot of hours in front of a computer screen.

I worked at a Four Star hotel as a receptionist. The pay was embarrassing and the hours unreasonable. The perks were great in more ways than one ;3

[gig_freak]

I never had a real job (except an internship at a local advertising agency which I hated). Well, I can say that I have spent a lot of hours in front of a computer screen.

I worked at a Four Star hotel as a receptionist. The pay was embarrassing and the hours unreasonable. The perks were great in more ways than one ;3

Woofy for the win. 🙂

Hands down, you were richer than me an Atari, a Sega Genesis, and a Gameboy. I had only PS1 and a computer, which was a tool for my dad as he is a college professor, and my mom worked at a magazine at the time, so they needed a PC on an everyday basis. It wasn’t my play toy 😆

Never had Windows 95, my PC had Windows 98 on it. The configuration was Pentium I, 32MB RAM (Might have been 16), and an onboard GPU. I was 3 years old when I first sat on that computer, and it was older than me. Last time I have turned on that PC just for fun, it was still working (8 years ago). Then because I was straight A’s in second grade, I got a gift, a brand new PC. 256MB or Ram, Pentium IV. After that, the PS1 was given to me as a gift from my cousins as they immigrated to another country.

Never used the DOS.

In Macedonia, I don’t remember that we had original Lego, Barbie, and similar branded stuff while I was a kid. They were all imported from Greece or something.

Once upon a time, I knew basic C++, but I was not really good at maths so I skipped programming. However, I have won two awards on entepreneurship/business competitions. 🙂

I worked at a Four Star hotel as a receptionist. The pay was embarrassing and the hours unreasonable.

That’s why I do not want to get a "rea"l job. I know a couple of people that are owners of great companies, but because I am a student they offer a lower salary.