To feel like I wouldn’t be that bothered if the internet disappeared?

But Wow Forever is launching in November!

Late Gen Xer here. Similar to other people, I remember a pre-internet age. If I wanted to look up something we had the Encyclopedia Britannica at the local library. I had more books in the house. If I needed to make an emergency call out and about I would have to use a pay phone. I had a pager! My mum would accept 20p from a neighbour for phone calls because the neighbour didn't have a phone. I did all my school work on paper. We used to have one of those stacking hi-fi systems. 🤣 I miss CDs though.

My employer has pretty much transferred all our systems to internet-based apps now. I hate not using pen & paper, but I've adapted. I spend a lot of time online now, for all kinds of things, and life is based around the internet, you can't avoid it. In fact, I was surprised the DVLA still ask that certain things can only be done on a paper form. I recently had some legal work done and it was all done online including verifying my identity. I don't know why the DVLA haven't caught up.

The disadvantage of the internet is many. Everyone wants you to have an account. There's an app for that. People have used my identity to defraud companies. Too much time spent on social media.

I still handwrite letters because I find people are so surprised by them, and they tell me how happy they are to receive them. I once wrote to the Tate and didn't include a stamp. It was my tiny protest on how they dumbed down describing their art and how people have enough intelligence to understand the context of history. I didn't include a phone number or email address. They wrote back with their response but they still had to pay my postage.

Otherwise I use email a lot. In the early days of Facebook I would post pictures of DD but I soon learned that was a stupid idea and deleted them. (later deleted Facebook) Ever since have sent photos to family & friends by email. I still ask my DD and her cousins for permission to share their photos despite them all being adults now.

So in some ways life is more efficient, and in other ways life is harder. It's quicker, better, but also not good at all. 🤷🏻 I worry about AI though. That's a scary future.

I agree. I’d be happy to go back to the way things were in some ways. Not instantly, in a chaos causing kind of way, but gently.

I’m only mid 40s but didn’t have the internet while I was at uni. We went to the library and studied from books. We had computers to type essays up on, but these were saved on floppy disks and handed in - my dissertation in my final year was on a floppy disk. The info we needed was given to us in person at lectures.

Buying concert tickets was so much easier! There were little ticket office shops - at least three in the city I live in, and you could just turn up when it suited and buy tickets - paper versions were either given to you there and then or posted to you. I could get tickets easily for massively popular bands, there was none of this mass hysteria that you see nowadays as there was no social media. I got tickets for Oasis when tickets had been out for a while. Yet last year we queued online for hours on day of release, and didn’t manage to get any (and half the people I know who got them aren’t even fans!).

When I needed a job after I finished uni I walked into an agency and spoke to a human who matched me with a job. No online CVs being scanned by bots.

There have always been scammers but the internet makes it so much easier for them; before it was not falling for sales pitches at your door and being careful at cash machines, today there are fake websites, multiple accounts required for everything which are vulnerable to being hacked etc.

And yes, the smartphone addiction. Smartphones have improved lives in some ways, but not for everyone - you can’t deny that a certain percentage of people are addicted to the extent that it impacts their lives for the worse.

But it’s a difficult one, because obviously the internet is a lifeline for many too.

I don’t think mental health would necessarily be better without the internet - possibly without smartphones/“curate your life” social media, but being able to be connected to a much wider range of people to “find your tribe” is really positive for mental health, especially for people who are isolated or rural.

As long as I could still get my shopping delivered (I am disabled) then I agree. I am sure this could be arranged over the phone

We had our weekly shop delivered in the 1960s. Mum gave the delivery driver her shopping list for the following week.

Then just come off social media?

I’ve never understood why so many people seem to have such venom about something that’s entirely optional

Me neither! Don't want to see inane selfies? You don't have to. Just delete FB or Instagram.
Want to read more books? You can. Just use your local library.
Want to talk to more people? Join a hobby group that meets offline.
Want to buy less? You can, because it really is not necessary to do what influencers tell you

Obviously it's not all as simple as that. But sometimes it can be.

Some of the responses on here! It’s like people forget that the internet is a relatively new thing. I’m in my 50s and we managed perfectly well without the internet when I was young(er). If the internet disappeared, there would be a period of disarray and then things would revert to how they were in the 80s and 90s.

There’s a massive difference between living before something existed entirely, and losing something that has revolutionised our world.

No internet banking, no emailing no electronic transfer of documents - I used to work in publishing and to go back to how it was in the 1980s with typewriters and couriers? No thanks. And so many systems rely on it: banking and world economy, governmental communication, logistics and infrastructure, medical etc. And what about everything you’ve stored in the cloud? Bye bye.

Exactly. So much of modern life only exists because of the internet - it’s all very well saying “we coped in the 70’s” but that was almost 60 years ago - life has moved on 😂

I remember in the early days of the web, naysayers would scoff at the (to them) perceived pointlessness of it. If you mentioned anything that they weren't aware of, they would sneer "Oh, is that something that yiu read on the Internet?!" Even if you'd read it on a verified, trusted, official site.

It's a basic logical fallacy to assume that the simple medium equals the content. It's like saying that Shakespeare and Pick Me Up! must be of equal merit, purely because they're both accessed via the printed word.

It has, and if we were to change back it would need to be as gradual.

But the Internet didn't just appear in a vacuum; it developed from standard telephone comms technology because of the clear additional benefits that it could bring.

So you're phoning in your order... you ask them about specific items that they sell, which options/sizes/brands, is anything out of stock? What are the prices - have there been any recent increases, or special offers/bulk buys?

What would really help would be if they could have a catalogue - but then they'd have to bring it to your door, and it obviously would be static and wouldn't be updated with new/delisted products, so you'd have to hope not much had changed since the last edition.

Then, you know, it's not ideal having to find time during your busy day to have to phone them. There's so much other stuff going on in life during daylight hours; and you often have to keep calling back when it's engaged, before somebody is available to take your order. Then what if you realise you forgot a couple of items? Have to call back, wait to get through, and see if you can catch them in time.

Hey, it would be perfect if you could see everything all together on a screen - all of the product info and availability and the very latest updated details... and if you could compile your order whenever it suits you, bit by bit up to the cut-off and at 2am if that works best for you!

If only they could develop a way to make this much more practical and convenient!!!

I think a lot of people see the Internet a bit like camping, when they outright declare that it should be scrapped.

They're happy to sleep out overnight, outside of a building, but they will need a decent tent, of course. And it's fine not having your own bed, but you need a decent airbed - you can't just sleep on the bare ground! And you have to have a proper toilet block - you wouldn't dream of using a bucket behind a hedge. Oh, and proper showers too... with hot water. And you'll need to charge your phone and maybe a small heater or fan, so you want an electric hookup.......

It's so easy to take a blanket 'all or nothing' arritude in theory; but in practice, everybody wants all the comforts and facilities that they like and find essential; but the ones that don't appeal or apply to them are probably just unnecessary tech for the sake of it, and can and should just be banned/got rid of/stopped, with no loss to the world!

Tbh they probably do need a phone.

Because their mate crossing the road is more likely to be hit, because they were too busy staring at said phone.

If anything I've seen in the last week is to go by.

They need phones because there aren't any payphones anymore on street corners.

And let's not forget, some schools/teachers have actively encourage phone use in the classroom, i.e. online homework apps, VLEs, quizlet for revision, taking photos/videos of science experiments, photos/videos for art projects, uploaded worksheets instead of printing them, etc.

What this thread abundantly demonstrates is how dependant we are on the internet. It's absolutely brilliant in so many ways, but it's frightening how buggered we would be without it, and how possible it is that we could be without it. It wouldn't be easy to disrupt it, but the fact is, it could be done, and on small scales, it has been done.

It's interesting to note that, whilst people have mentioned the fact that you can find out how to do absolutely anything on the net, with helpful videos, etc, for some reason, the internet generation, we often hear, has the least practical skills. The oft-heard complaint that 'schools should teach' this that and the other basic skill because of the number of graduates who can't operate a washing machine or cook a basic meal do make me wonder why, in an age where we have this amazing tool, this should be the case. Don't know, watch a video!

It's certainly not something I would like to see disappear completely, but I do think the speed with which it has taken up the strain, as it were, of so much of our lives is without precedent.

And that has brought with it its own problems.

Except the vast majority of people are not going to want to give up the internet. It's too convenient and too many of us rely on it to do our jobs.

I can't see how we could go backwards gradually at all. I don't think there's even been a point in history where things have gone backward "gradually". What we do have is evidence of pretty sudden "backwards" events such as the end of highly civilised nations such as the Aztecs and Egyptians where pretty advanced (at the time) technology seemed to disappear/be forgotten remarkably quickly and the end of Empires such as Romans, Greek, and Russian. I suspect that "IF" the internet ever does come to an end, it won't be gradual, it will be a massive sudden shock that damages our entire civilisation as we know it.

This reminds me of the mind numbing hours I spent repeating myself on the phone to get quotes for motor insurance.

Having been fortune to experience growing up in my prime years without the Internet but to have it now, it's one of those dilemmas as both pros and cons.

I wouldn't have liked to been young with modern technology because it really was a time of real, in the moment experiences and you naturally had be more pro active, engaged and learn about things like routes, maintenance, plan etc.

However, I do love being to find out anything immediately, take, store and share photos, contact loved ones any time, book travel and accommodation easily, order online. I guess when you've not been used to it it's remarkable to be able to have life at your fingertips.

The drawbacks are you are you always accessible for other means, especially work and yes the logging in, keeping up to date with new systems is indeed difficult!

Far more worrying is indeed social media, where a single (possibly AI manipulated) photo could end in disaster, online bullying, the pressure to show off a shallow lifestyle.

It can be so easy for people, particularly if introverted, to live their lives in cyberspace, go down wormholes, never interact in the world.

I wasn’t suggesting we should, only that if it ever is decided that the internet be turned off, a gradual change would be necessary for everything the internet has replaced to be reinstated.

Anything else risks the “massive sudden shock that damages our entire civilisation as we know it.”

😂😂😂😂 I’m old enough to remember calling the hairdresser on the landline to book an appointment. Also you shouldn’t be using google to find out what’s medically wrong with you 😂 oh I needed a chuckle today