"Last generation who knew life before the internet"

[Nextphonewontbesamsung]

I heard this phrase on R2 or R4 recently (sorry I can't remember the specifics). It was a discussion programme, possibly about something on at the Edinburgh Fringe, and the general consensus was that it was quite unique to be a person who has lived through as an adult straddling that boundary between no internet/then internet.

I am in this generation and I DO actually feel in a bit of a no-mans land. Anyone else? and how old are you roughly? when did the internet become a thing in your life?

I was at work in 1994/5 when I first heard the word "internet". The Chief Exec was having some extra wiring done into his office but he was the only one in our company of about 50 people. I was over 30 so had lived many adult years without it and it was many more years before it become a thing that I just had access to.

I'm struggling to think of a more life-changing invention. Maybe fire? or the wheel?

Similar to you, I first heard about it around 1996/7 when I enrolled in Uni as a mature student, and as I had the option at the time I ignored it. I found out more about 5 years later but didn't have it at home until Talk Talk made it cheaply available around 2005?

Do you remember when everyone had to say "double u double u double u" before the web address?

I remember a few people using computers when I was at uni in the very early Nineties. Two of my flatmates had PCs but I don’t think anyone was really online - they were just using them as word processors.

(Actually, there’s a phrase I haven’t heard or thought of in a while - word processor - does anyone still say that?)

1990 at Uni - we used basic forums - think it was 'usenet' to have discussions on a range of topics.

First email account in 1997

Do you feel aware of being in a bit of a unique position?

As in, you can easily remember when you had to go to a library to look up something, when there was no social media, when there was no email. When you had to phone someone or write to them to communicate with them? When you had to buy a newspaper or watch the news to know what was going on in the world?

It seems almost dark ages now to look at it written down like that but we all had modern and sophisticated lives, didn't we?

Well yeah, but my parents have also travelled the non-digital to digital road in their lifetimes and careers, so it's not really unique.

It really is like remembering a diferent world. I dont think my children woll wver grasp not having informarion at your fingertips - bus times, phone numbers, homework, bot being able to contact people if you were running late.

Our system at unin of actually walking to peoples colleges and leaving a note on their door if you wanted to arrange to meet up!!! Notice boards even.

And i remember first hatting to people online and feeling so bonded to friends on a message board. And actually meeting up with internet friends. Personal safety!?!?

Friends reunited - frist getting in touch with people you'd heard nothing of for 10 years. Facèbook!

So much change.

I'm 51. I remember thinking, in my first proper job during 1987 to 1990, that the manual records I was creating & updating should be computerised one day not too far away. Email came in towards the end of my time there, but we still had a typing pool (though we were by then allowed to make our own photocopies) and template letters were created with blue carbon paper. I did a lot of filing.

After each payday, I would make a trip to the bank to pay bills. If I wanted to know what was on at the cinema, I looked in the local paper or rang. I only changed my car insurance every other year because that's how often I could face ringing round for quotes

At university from 1990 to 1993 I used a a friend's word processor for my essays (and loaned my electronic typewriter to friends).

When I started work again in 1993, the organisation was brand new: we all got PCs and training in Word, Excel and whatever the email programme was.

Weirdly I cannot remember first using the Internet.

Going to the library to look something up,
Going to the travel agent to find out about a place abroad either for travel or a school project...

Do you feel aware of being in a bit of a unique position

Not really unique - I'm late 50s and all my generation grew up without the internet.

Having to go to the uni library to either photocopy journal articles or take notes...

Not all online and accessible.

Chat rooms.

Oh gosh yes having the paper for the cinema listings!

Pre mobile phone... I lived in a rural area and my friends and I would leave a note on each other's car if we saw it in the car park in town g just to say hi or I'll be home by 4 if you want to come over

I fisrt used the internet in 1993. My best friends husband had a home office with a big computer set up with internet. I was pregnant (only reason I remember the year) and we used to let the older boys play while we surfed the net. I bloody loved it from the first time we used it. Got our own home computer in 96 and internet in 97 at our house. Dial up. I could turn it on, go and make some coffee and a bit of toast and when I got back it would be ready to go.

I can remember working with the technical director to introduce email (Eudora) into the architects' practice where I was working in 1996; and then designing their first website using HTML code in 1997. I would imagine we had dial-up internet at home from around 1995 for me to be that net-savvy.

My abiding memory of school was that all projects and homework had to be researched at the library and then hand-written with hand-done drawings as a presentation. Nothing typed. Rarely a photocopy (it was expensive at 10p a go). As a child I had a callous on my second finger from the pen/writing, but that's well gone now, I write barely more than a post-it note worth!

I remember having to I type “www. Mumsnet. Com” instead of just “mumsnet.com” also being told you had to put + or . Between words in google to make it work quicker

It is hard enough to work out how we did stuff and it wasnt that long ago.
I was struggling to remember how we looked up organised trips before the internet. I travelled all over the world with little pre-planning. I can barely remember how we got hostels, buses etc. Also how much more we communicated face to face or talking on the phone
I'm 45 and already feel we grew up in a totally different world, and the one we are entering has some positives but some serious negatives as well.

It is amazing how much the internet has changed everything so quickly. When we bought our first house we had to wait for the property pages in the local paper each week, or trawl local estate agents, now everything you could ever need to know is there in the palm of your hand within a few clicks!

I remember when we got mice at work, previously everything had been done with keystrokes. No-one had a clue how to use them. And the screens changed from green to WYSIWYG.
When I say I used Telex in my first job the kids at work are like "WTF is Telex". Try to explain it was pre-Fax and they're still looking at me like I have two heads.

There's a word for us - Xennials - because we had an analogue childhood and digital adulthood.

Oh God yes, Telex! to communicate with people overseas.

I remember being in France on holiday when I was about 19. I needed to phone home to my Mum in England. It involved a trip to the post office, a pre-booked appointment, quite a long wait, quite a substantial payment.

Until I was 10 we had no internet, and until I was about 15 it was clunky dial up and our use was pretty restricted. I didn't get a laptop until I went to uni at 18, and I didn't get an internet enabled phone until I was about 23. We had internet at my high school, and email addresses too, which seemed very advanced!

So I remember growing up without the internet as entertainment, although we did have an N64 which my brother and I spent a lot of time on. I remember reading and doing a lot of jigsaws and playing with physical toys, and that weird MS pinball game, and playing other non-internet games like Zoo Tycoon. I remember having a lot of different encyclopaedias and, if we ever bothered to consult the Dorling Kindersley encyclopaedia on the computer, it took bloody forever to load anything.

I remember the early days of social media and the glory days of MSN messenger.

I still carried a paper road atlas in my car until I sold it a couple of years ago, as when I learnt to drive I wasn't able to look up routes on my phone if I was lost.

I suppose I was truly in-between, as I grew up initially with no internet at all, and it only really began to appear in my life properly from age 10-12 onwards. And even then, I spent many years with the early phases of mass internet (it was obviously around before 1999!), and thinking back to how it used to be, it's virtually unrecognisable now; most sites have disappeared, swallowed up by the advance of giants like Facebook and Youtube etc.

I was thinking about this the other day, remembering all the days out we went on as kids in the 80s and wondering how my mum found out about the good places to go without Google! It must have taken so much longer to research and organise anything.

I've had the internet all my adult life. Sometimes I wonder what a post-internet world might be like, if for some reason we didn't have it any more...

It’s never really struck me before that we’re a historically significant group. Love it. I never usually feel significant in any way

“I am in this generation and I DO actually feel in a bit of a no-mans land”

To me, feeling in no mans land means that you feel lost and uncertain etc

I don’t. I’m 43. I grew up without internet, applied for jobs without it, looked stuff up in the library. It’s not really something I think about. I can see that mum, at 80, feels a bit overwhelmed with tech progress but I can’t see what the no man’s land thing is about.