Do you remember the time before the internet?

[Darsnan]

We get a lot of talk about smartphones and the dangers and what not, but do you remember what life was like before it?

I remember the blizzards in the late 1960's and early 1970's where we'd be snowed in for the better part of a week due to the snow and bitter cold. Cabin fever was a real issue back then. I remember one year my parents had gotten me a Sesame Street record, and I played it over and over and over and over until even I was tired of it. I'd say it would've drove my parents nuts save for they knew it was a godsend compared to having to try and entertain me for hours on end.

I grew up running around outside, exploring the woods, reading, or making up stories with toys.

Pretty much the same for me. We had a huge expanse of woods and swamp behind my house, and I used to take the dog tromping around. And I'd get together with the neighborhood kids to play whatever seasonal game we wanted (football and baseball during the summer, and pond hockey during the winter). We'd also play tag and guns at night: those were some really fun times! I also remember my mother getting me a book one Christmas: I didn't understand a lot of what was going on at first, but it was a riveting adventure that got me hooked on the sci-fi genre: that book was Larry Niven's Ringworld Engineers.

The internet without social media would have probably been nicer, but given who we are, unlikely.

I started out on another Civ-related forum and left there because I'd pretty much put everyone who wasn't a Mod onto my ignore list, so yeah it would've been unlikely the internets would've been better without social media: there are just those elements who like to stir the proverbial pot.

D

 

[IglooDame]

I peg the birth of the internet at Oct 1st 1969 (as that was the first time one computer was connected to another), so I was born before it, but don't remember anything from that first week of my life. But to the spirit of the question, yeah. I was using BBSs in college, and first got on Promenade/Prodigy (which AOL soon bought) when I was stationed on a ship out of Pearl Harbor in 1992 or thereabouts. Played lots of trivia. Met my first wife.

 

[H4run]

The internet without social media would have probably been nicer, but given who we are, unlikely.

I agree. Most of my elementary, junior high, and high school friends are on my Facebook. I mean, it ironically gives the sense that we're still in touch, with the absent of keeping in touch, it's an impression without substance, an illusion. There should be a sweetness where we never meet each other for decades, then we meet up and find out about each other. That tension is eliminated with social media. That's only one aspect; there are lots of others that we can talk about regarding social media.

 

[Samson]

The internet without social media would have probably been nicer, but given who we are, unlikely.

Social media came before the internet.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Social media came before the internet.

Going back farther, you have letters to the editor of the local paper, and letters to the editor of magazines. That's the kind of 'social media' I grew up with.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Social media came before the internet.

Well I guess you can call Usenet social media of a sorts, but I doubt folks on social media since 2008 or so would call it the same.

I was in Business school at UNC in 82-84. I may have even used this, but at the time didn't know it. The two schools were and still are sports rivals and competed for b-school students and national ranking in that arena. Back then both schools had very progressive B-school programs so this is not surprising.

"Usenet was conceived in 1979 and publicly established in 1980, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University,[8][2] over a decade before the World Wide Web went online (and thus before the general public received access to the Internet), making it one of the oldest computer network communications systems still in widespread use." From your link.

 

[Quintillus]

I agree. Most of my elementary, junior high, and high school friends are on my Facebook. I mean, it ironically gives the sense that we're still in touch, with the absent of keeping in touch, it's an impression without substance, an illusion. There should be a sweetness where we never meet each other for decades, then we meet up and find out about each other. That tension is eliminated with social media. That's only one aspect; there are lots of others that we can talk about regarding social media.

I think that's the key difference - that illusion of being in touch. Particularly if you are only ever reading updates but not asking questions and leaving comments. Despite the fact that I've knowingly met exactly one CivFanatic in real life, one could make a decent case that I'm actually more in touch with many of the members of this thread than I would be with people I was connected to on Facebook but hadn't actually interacted with in a decade.

A friend recently asked me why I went to my high school reunion, and I didn't think of this reason at the time, but part of the reason was not using social media and thus legitimately not knowing what anyone beyond the circle I was still in regular contact with was up to. Thus making it interesting to learn that in person.

 

[Kyriakos]

A friend recently asked me why I went to my high school reunion, and I didn't think of this reason at the time, but part of the reason was not using social media and thus legitimately not knowing what anyone beyond the circle I was still in regular contact with was up to. Thus making it interesting to learn that in person.

Going to a reunion with people you just happened to be with decades ago, is arguably less meaningful than interaction on social media ^^

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

Well I guess you can call Usenet social media of a sorts, but I doubt folks on social media since 2008 or so would call it the same.

I was in Business school at UNC in 82-84. I may have even used this, but at the time didn't know it. The two schools were and still are sports rivals and competed for b-school students and national ranking in that arena. Back then both schools had very progressive B-school programs so this is not surprising.

"Usenet was conceived in 1979 and publicly established in 1980, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University,[8][2] over a decade before the World Wide Web went online (and thus before the general public received access to the Internet), making it one of the oldest computer network communications systems still in widespread use." From your link.

Google acquired the searchable database of usenet posts and used it to refine and train their own search methods.
Usenet also contained a large amount of extremely useful computer code.

(BirdJaguar: You might get a bit wistful here about socks and sandals, and the language of the gods, so take a moment.)

Just one example: the comp.lang.fortran group had contributors who wrote IBM's fortran compilers. The head of that team was still answering questions there until he retired a few years ago.

Dagnabit, now I've got tears welling up.

END PROGRAM

 

[Smellincoffee]

Going to a reunion with people you just happened to be with decades ago, is arguably less meaningful than interaction on social media ^^

For what it's worth, my high school class never bothered with a ten-year reunion, and at the twenty-year reunion maybe ten people showed up? Like a buddy of mine said to me in Walmart -- people I want to see IRL, I see in IRL. The others, I know about their kids and their wives and their ex-wives and their boats from facebook. And the rest? Wouldn't want to see again anyway!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

There are very few of my former classmates I ever wanted to see again. I kept in touch with a few, and a few others are casual "hi, how are you? Fine" kinds of interactions if we bump into each other at the mall. And there are some I couldn't stand - at the age they were when they were bullying people, they were old enough to know better. Fast-forward, and they're old enough to know that apologies would be appropriate. Nothing has ever been forthcoming, so why would I ever want anything to do with them?

I was rather blunt about this when someone phoned me about the 10-year reunion. The person who called was one who, while not among the bullies, she also never spoke up in my defense when her friends joined in. I told her this and said, "I never want to see them again, so don't call me again. I won't be going."

I did encourage a friend to go to the reunion, though (10th year anniversary of junior high reunion). She said she hadn't really done anything with her life so why bother? I reminded her that she'd had jobs, she'd done a variety of things in the theatre, from acting and dancing to tech work and was on the board of directors, she'd gotten married and traveled, and the farm was successful, and she was in college pursuing a degree in drama. That's plenty to say she's done with her life, more than many of them could likely say, and if that's the only reason she wasn't sure about going, she should go.

So she did and said she'd had a great time.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, I've only been to one reunion (elementary school), and it sort of sucked

 

[Birdjaguar]

I went to my 50th and discovered a bunch of old men showed instead of my former classmates.

 

[Angst]

The internet is good because it’s funny. You get jerks from all over the world. Participating together in a nightmarish cesspool of stagnant evolution. It’s beautiful.

this is my view. the sheer efficiency; we get to be stupid, faster!

 

[Kyriakos]

The internet has positives too, of course, no need to focus on the bad ^^
Back in the day you'd need a couple of thousand dollars to buy the books you can read online (if you go on a spree on some favorite subject) in a month or two. And that's assuming you would be able to find them.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The internet has positives too, of course, no need to focus on the bad ^^
Back in the day you'd need a couple of thousand dollars to buy the books you can read online (if you go on a spree on some favorite subject) in a month or two. And that's assuming you would be able to find them.

In some cases it depends on if you find them on a non-legit site or if it's legit in the way that you can find some fascinating stuff on Project Gutenberg.

Some years ago I was trying to find an unabridged copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, in English. It was available on Project Gutenberg in French, and so help me, I'd have tried to wade through it in French. Fortunately, though, one of the second-hand booksellers in town here found me a copy in English.

 

[Quintillus]

Where I live, they had a solution for that "want to read a bunch of books before the Internet" solution - the library. We still have them, and I went to one today that had a wonderful selection of books.

How to find the books? The card catalog. And starting in the 1970s, they were made electronic and linked together so you could search the card catalogs of other locations from your local library, and wouldn't have to drive or call around inquiring whether each library had an item available. Technically this was a form of internetworking, but it predated the option to have any sort of similar connectivity at your home.

Admittedly, Ohio was ahead of the curve in this area, and has historically invested more in libraries than most parts of the U.S., also resulting in a wider selection of books. But the question of, "how do we make reading material available to people who don't have a lot of money to drop on buying it all?" was considered before the Internet existed.

Nowadays? I find it's often more convenient to borrow a physical copy than an e-book. Lots of people switched allegiances to e-books during the pandemic, so for a title of even moderate popularity, there's often a wait list for the e-book copies, but unless the book is a new bestseller, it's often possible to borrow a physical copy the same day if you're willing to travel to the branch with a copy on the shelves, or to have it shipped to your local branch within a few days. Of course, you could buy an e-book copy online, but then we're getting back to the initial problem of spending potentially lots of cash.

For out-of-copyright titles that are freely available on the Internet, yes, that is a clear advantage. Although I'll often still prefer a physical copy for reading in the comfort of an armchair.

 

[Kyriakos]

Libraries - unless incredibly massive - won't solve the problem if you are looking for a lot of very specific books. Yes, for classics of literature they might, even if small, but not for most other fields

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Where I live, they had a solution for that "want to read a bunch of books before the Internet" solution - the library. We still have them, and I went to one today that had a wonderful selection of books.

How to find the books? The card catalog. And starting in the 1970s, they were made electronic and linked together so you could search the card catalogs of other locations from your local library, and wouldn't have to drive or call around inquiring whether each library had an item available. Technically this was a form of internetworking, but it predated the option to have any sort of similar connectivity at your home.

Admittedly, Ohio was ahead of the curve in this area, and has historically invested more in libraries than most parts of the U.S., also resulting in a wider selection of books. But the question of, "how do we make reading material available to people who don't have a lot of money to drop on buying it all?" was considered before the Internet existed.

Nowadays? I find it's often more convenient to borrow a physical copy than an e-book. Lots of people switched allegiances to e-books during the pandemic, so for a title of even moderate popularity, there's often a wait list for the e-book copies, but unless the book is a new bestseller, it's often possible to borrow a physical copy the same day if you're willing to travel to the branch with a copy on the shelves, or to have it shipped to your local branch within a few days. Of course, you could buy an e-book copy online, but then we're getting back to the initial problem of spending potentially lots of cash.

For out-of-copyright titles that are freely available on the Internet, yes, that is a clear advantage. Although I'll often still prefer a physical copy for reading in the comfort of an armchair.

If I were to catalogue my book collection according to the Dewey Decimal System, I'd hit every single major category, before even remotely approaching the fiction part. That's what happens when you collect stuff, keep some of the grandparents' books, and never get rid of your college textbooks. Even foreign languages are covered here, since I've got books in French, Swedish, Latin, Lolcat, Klingon, Romulan, and Vulcan.

Libraries - unless incredibly massive - won't solve the problem if you are looking for a lot of very specific books. Yes, for classics of literature they might, even if small, but not for most other fields

Over the years I just found it more convenient to buy a book, whether new or second-hand, rather than keep traipsing back to the library. I like to take my time with a book and not be under a deadline.

 

[Quintillus]

Libraries - unless incredibly massive - won't solve the problem if you are looking for a lot of very specific books. Yes, for classics of literature they might, even if small, but not for most other fields

That's the reason Ohio invested in making it easy to borrow from other libraries within the state. It certainly isn't possible to find every book at even the largest city library, but if you add up all the local and university libraries in the state, the coverage is pretty broad.

I'm sure exceptions can be found, but it still adds up to a significant cost savings versus having to buy every book that you plan to read.

If I were to catalogue my book collection according to the Dewey Decimal System, I'd hit every single major category, before even remotely approaching the fiction part. That's what happens when you collect stuff, keep some of the grandparents' books, and never get rid of your college textbooks. Even foreign languages are covered here, since I've got books in French, Swedish, Latin, Lolcat, Klingon, Romulan, and Vulcan.

Sounds like an impressive collection! Mine is limited by moving too frequently to want to accumulate many more.

There are books in Lolcat? Klingon does not surprise me, but Lolcat does!

Over the years I just found it more convenient to buy a book, whether new or second-hand, rather than keep traipsing back to the library. I like to take my time with a book and not be under a deadline.

Another side benefit of the Internet and the switch towards e-books, I've found it's much more likely that I can renew a book than it used to be, and I can do it from home. Which in turn has increased my positive disposition towards libraries, as you are right, it was always annoying to be partway through a book and be at the really good part and then have to return it.

The e-books with a waitlist don't have that benefit.