What did you people do before the internet?

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Now I'm 21 and have had access to the internet in various speeds for about 7-8 years and I cannot for the life of me remember what I used to before I wasted lots of time surfing the world wide interstellar highway porn wagon. Well I probably built lots of forts and compared penis size with my friends, but that's not the point.

How different would your life be if the internet hadn't been invented? Would you be more social with 'real' people. Would you have killed yourself because of the realisation that you are so alone, alone in this cold, cold world? Would you be forced to hang around railway sidings waiting in line behind 13 year-old boys to get a go on the ragged copy of razzle that is hidden behind the big bramble bush on the left just after the signal box to get you fix of erotic women degrading? Would you still be listening to the same music and the words MP3 would sound like Japanese to your gentle ears? Would your political outlooks be the same if you hadn't had access to the tons of non-mainstream information that's avaliable over the internet?

[imitationleather]

Playstation.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

I've never actually owned a games console. I've always managed to get by playing on mates' systems. Anyway that wasn't the point you twart.

[The Boston Crab]

I would waste hundreds of pounds on CDs, blow my load in about fifteen seconds due to lack of over-stimulation through obscene online images, I would inevitably drink more to attempt to soak up that desert of solitude each of us wanders day and night, nomads in the city, hanging our beds up on a tree.

I'm often reminded of a quite annoying but entirely true quote about in the absence of defined goals we seek solace in daily acts of trivia. That pretty much sums it up. I'd just collect Faberge eggs instead.

[Ciarán2]

Libraries.

There was no Wikpedia back then, it were all fields round here. To track down that detailed Strawberry Alarm Clock discography, dusty old copied of Record Collector had to be collated and consulted. The local library was a regular haunt in tracking down maps, biographical details and interesting essays. A trip to a second record shop was required if an obscure early 70s single just had to be listened to again. And the video recorder and tape recorder were essential for viewing old broadcast material.

In other words a bit more work was involved, and I kind of miss it. I remember spending a few weekend at the library reading a giant Rock Encyclopedia and learning all about Joe Meek's studio practices...

[Artemis]

I've used the internet since 1999, and since 2000 at home. Before this time is a vague blur, but I know I spent more time with people back then. I miss doing that in many ways, but the trade-off is generally worth it.

[munkybitch]

masterbate with the littlewoods catalogue

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

More porn?

[Labian Quest]

I think the internet has helped a lot of people to develop themselves, e.g.

[Marv Orange]

I had friends before the internet.

[Banana Woofwoof]

I read books and entertained people at dinner parties.

[Suttonpubcrawl]

Nothing at all.

[grundie]

Fidonet.

Ah, for the good old Amiga days.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

Before the internet, somebody could tell you about a 'lost' Carry On film called Carry On Screwing which a friend of a friend's brother had once seen, and you could never be entirely sure whether they were bullshitting you or not. I mean, you could look in film guides, but they're not necessarily gospel.

These days, if Carry On screwing had ever existed, then Google would pick up a record for it. Result: urban myth instantly squashed flat.

In some ways, this is a good thing, but in other ways I kinda miss the mystery. Everyone's so bloody savvy and cocksure these days - there seems less scope for pissing about.

[gazzyk1ns]

Fidonet.

ARPANET. And before that, I used to communicate with my friends by speaking in ones and zeros.

[imitationleather]

Before the internet, somebody could tell you about a 'lost' Carry On film called Carry On Screwing which a friend of a friend's brother had once seen, and you could never be entirely sure whether they were bullshitting you or not. I mean, you could look in film guides, but they're not necessarily gospel.

These days, if Carry On screwing had ever existed, then Google would pick up a record for it. Result: urban myth instantly squashed flat.

In some ways, this is a good thing, but in other ways I kinda miss the mystery. Everyone's so bloody savvy and cocksure these days - there seems less scope for pissing about.

ELW10, did you know that the word "gullible" is not in the dictionary?

[Suttonpubcrawl]

ELW10, did you know that the word "gullible" is not in the dictionary?

I looked it up and it is:
http://www.answers.com/gullible&r=67

[wheatgod]

So... many... levels...

[Part Chimp]

I read books and entertained people at dinner parties.

Why don't you read books anymore? That's sad. If I found the internet was taking time away from reading or other things I love I'd seriously cut down on using it.

[SweetRosalyn]

I used to talk on the phone a lot more.  I hardly ever have phone conversations with people any more.  It's funny, I used to spend hours on the phone, and now I really hate it, and won't phone people unless I absolutely have to.

Erm *thinks* I also used to read a lot.  I still read a lot, but not to the ridiculous extent I used to pre-internet.

I'd agree on the library front, too.  I remember doing research for school projects, and it involved ages using the microfiche and trawling bookshelves, and making notes from piles of books.  Now researching something nearly always means using google.  I used libraries a bit for my degree, obviously, but far less than I ought to have.  

I was a child before the internet.  I've never experienced adult life without it, so it's hard to say how my life would be different.  I'm not sure I would have had the guts to go all the way across the world to Australia for a year on my own without the internet.  Certainly it would have been a rather different process.

[Still Not George]

I used to talk on the phone a lot more.  I hardly ever have phone conversations with people any more.  It's funny, I used to spend hours on the phone, and now I really hate it, and won't phone people unless I absolutely have to.

That as far as I can tell is just a teenage girl -> adult woman crossover thing. Most women I know absolutely hate using the phone, and the ones who don't I avoid anyway - since most of them smell of phone germs.

Anyway...

I kind of grew up alongside the Net. Beforehand I was a tiny, terrified little boy with a library and a pathological fear of going home. I definitely read more books, but... I think I quite possibly read more now. In total. It's just that where I used to read fantasy novels and obscure books on religion, now I read physics papers and political discourses and technical guides and masses and masses of opinion.

I mean, the Net's kind of been in lockstep with me. Email took off roundabout when I was getting to the point of wanting to communicate with people more, the Web appeared round about when I had a lot more free time and a wish to do something with it, the porn explosion coincided with the peak of my adolescence.
Actually, now I think of it, I AM THE INTERNETS.

[nixon]

What did I do before the internet?

Library's.  I spent a lot of rainy afternoons in them.   Spent hours at WHSmiths magazine "Wall".  I read.. a LOT. Hung around with friends IN PERSON.  Talked on the phone a lot more and used a lot of phone boxes to make the calls (no mobile either). watched TV  A  LOT.  The Christmas Radio Times was MUCH more of an event.  Countless cellophane wrapped VHS mountains waiting to be ripped open  and shoved into the recorder to "get that film" for my collection. I used to LISTEN to music.  Not listen to music in the background.  And then I'd buy 12" records and take them home to tape, to use on my walkman.

God.  That was only 11 years ago.

Now one little box with a flat panel screen attached to a phone line, does everything.  Do you know..

I wish sometimes It was the early nineties again.

[Neville Chamberlain]

Before the Internet I used to watch Blind Date and Gladiators.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

I used to just watch a lot more tv - and used to be obsessive about videoing stuff so I could build up a collection.  The Special Place and others like it have since done away with any need for videoing off-air and suddenly it doesn't feel very important anymore.  I also used to play computer games on my dad's pc, but I just can't be bothered with them anymore.  Oh, and one porn mag would last over a year.  Socially I don't think anything was any different.

Actually, the research thing shocked me.  The internet was still in its infancy when I was at Uni, so all through my education research meant going to the library - even during my PGCE a few years later.  But when I ended up teaching and I asked the kids to go away and research something, they always came back with the first thing they found on Google - even if it wasn't actually relevent, and even if I specified that they had to go to the library and research there.  I think they thought I meant go to the library and use their computers to google a result.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

I wish sometimes It was the early nineties again.

Bring back John Major, Nirvana, Bill Clinton and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, that's what I say!

[chand]

I watched a lot more TV. And went to bed earlier, I think. I still watch TV and play video games and read and play guitar and all that, I just use the internet as well. Occasionally I find myself thinking that I play football less and go out less nowadays because of the internet, but that's not really true: I got the internet aged about 21, whereas I stopped playing football when my footy friends fucked off to uni and got girlfriends at the age of about 18, and I stopped going out every week when I was about 20, just because I was thoroughly fucking sick of going to indie bars to despondently wave a bottle of warm Heineken around in the pretence that I was dancing and having a good time.

But yeah, TV is pretty much the thing that the internet replaced in my life. I used to watch all kinds of dreadful TV just to waste the next 30 minutes of life, whereas nowadays I pretty much just watch a few shows, most of which I tape and watch at 2am just before I'm about to fall asleep anyway. But I'd say that the internet has pretty much an entirely positive thing for me.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

There was brit-pop and to keep me company. Plus I was probably still kicking a football around the park and playing illegal golf. I was 14 when the internet first came to my house to our lives have co-existed beautifully.

Everyone's so bloody savvy and cocksure these days - there seems less scope for pissing about

These days you couldn't shock kids with a crafty page swipe from a porn mag.

[jennifer]

What about at work though? I spend an OBSCENE amount of time online due to cramming most of a days work into a couple of hours.

Back in the nineties when I was a temp, and there was no internet, I remember being bored out of my freaking mind most of the day. Solitaire, minesweeper, and the driving games on Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. That was your lot.

Although I do have an impressively high WPM, thanks to that scampy Mrs B.

[Cardinal Tit Storm]

Those were the days. What a saddo, eh.

[Still Not George]

Now that was a proper roleplaying game. None of this "I am a Level 15 priest with the Hammer of Zorgon" World of Warcraft bullshit. You'll have a farmer with a stick and like it.