"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?

Although I think it was an option, I never bothered to register for an email address when I was at university 1993-96. The departmental pigeonhole was the place all messages went.
The only person I knew with an email address at that time was my DF who worked for a large multinational company who were quite early adopters.
I got internet at home in the autumn of 1998 - I was in a house-share and remember thinking "Let's give this internet thing a whirl. It's only a fiver a month plus the phone bill. We can always cancel it if we find it's not that useful". I think that was the first time I ever went online. Amazing to think how relatively little stuff must have been on the internet back then, compared to now.

I remember in 1994 ... all the TV .adverts starting to show web address

And I'd visit some of the sites to find very little there - maybe a page on what the company was, address and phone number.

I worked closely with to lovely young women a year or so ago.
They were both only 21 or so and would ask me all sorts of questions about life back in the pre internet days.
It felt like me asking my granddad about his experience of the war in a way. This amazement that you can talk to someone who was there.

I think this is how this generation will be seen as we get old. Just like we saw the older generation always going on about the war, we will always go on about before the internet.

Then one day there will only be a few of us left and we will be interviewed for museums.

If anyone wants a blast from the internet past go to www.spacejam.com/archive/spacejam/movie/jam.htm

It’s the website for the 1996 film, Space Jam. For years no one thought to take it down and now it has been preserved.

I was at uni 1990-1994 and we handed in handwritten essays! I remember at work in 1995 getting my first email from Australia and being amazed!

Holidays were organised using lonely planet guidebooks or similar and phoning up to book. Or using a travel agent.
Meetups were arranged in advance with someone when you saw them or
Business information was released in yearly almanacs where products/services were listed and then you ordered a brochure and a sales rep to visit. Or general knowledge of popular products to use.
Banking was done in the bank and took days to process.
Life was slower.
Internet got off the ground as I was doing gcses/ alevels, but was dial up and only certain students were allowed to use it at school. We had it at home. Became more useful when I started uni 2001.

Looking back, I am quite impressed how my parents organised camping holidays in France with just a campsite guide.

Microfiche - I got so much information from those things for my dissertation in 1986 - I typed it up on one of those word processors that had a 5inch floppy disc.

The thing is, it didn’t all come at once. I started uni in 2001 so well after the time you’re talking about but there are still huge differences. I’d spend ages searching down specific journal articles, finding which position on which shelf in which library, travelling to said library then finding someone had taken it out or not put it back . I was in my teens when home internet and email became readily available but it was a far cry from constant social media and one click on amazon prime. So I’m not in the same bracket as the OP or many posters but I can still remember and understand that time.

Oh yes, Tay. What we have now is Web 2.0. The internet as we knew it back in the 90s was nothing like it is today.
It’s like comparing the Wright Brother’s plane with a long haul flight with a bar and showers.

What was it like before the Internet, Grandad?

Well Kids, we sat there all day, bored as fuck.

I’d spend ages searching down specific journal articles, finding which position on which shelf in which library, travelling to said library then finding someone had taken it out or not put it back

We used to have cards to look through that had links to articles and journals!

Fun and games.

Not the internet but it might interest some of you that there are teletext archaeologists.
The teletext signal was carried in the top bit of a tv picture which you can’t see when watching. When a tv program was recorded it also recorded these signals. So there are people who find old home recorded vhs tapes and pull out the teletext information.

teletextarchaeologist.org/

What was it like before the Internet, Grandad?

Well, we played chicken with the intercity train passing through our village, we stole apples and pears from the orchards, we explored our sexuality in the shrubbery, we roamed around in "gangs" playing truth or dare. We rang people's doorbells, then ran and hid. We filled people's letterboxes with bricks or pebbles or snow. We hid in the bushes with bits of plastic tube, blowing darts made from magazine pages.... but we were always home for dinner at 6

And our parents never asked what we did all day.

Pancakesndkeith that is fascinating, thanks for posting, I am going to have a good look through that link.

chomalungma
Looking back, I am quite impressed how my parents organised camping holidays in France with just a campsite guide

In 1976 DH (then BF) & I drove to Greece, navigating by road atlas & stopping in campsites from just a campsite guide

All the countries had different money so we had to change it at every border. We crossed from France to Italy on Ascension Day, everywhere was shut & we couldn't change money to buy petrol.

Things like camping Gaz were universal thank god so we could always cook.

In the seaside town where we stayed in Greece a mobile bank came round in a bus twice a week. We had a “Eurocheque” card which guaranteed our UK cheques - written in £ & converted. This was a big advance on travellers cheques. £10 lasted us till the next visit (multiple beers on day 1, 1 between us on day 3-4!)

It’s so much easier now, but arguably not so interesting

It wasn’t really that hard just different. I’d rock up to a European city with an address in Lonely Planet for a youth hostel.

I was at uni in the early 80s and I remember writing out my dissertation by hand and a friend of my mum's typing it out for me on her word processor.

I also remember having to get a pass so that I could use the library in my home town university during the holidays to study.

One of my first jobs in London involved using the telex. There was also a bank of about five computers at the back of the open plan office and you had to wait your turn to use them.

I also remember the paper for the printer having blue and white stripes and coming out in a bit long strip.

Seems like a different world now but the height of modern technology at the time.

Me circa 1994 in the newly evolved computer suite at uni’:

My husband had a computer in 1985 for his business
Not sure when we were switched onto the Internet.

I was 33 in 1984

"No Google??? So how did you find stuff out?" Alta Vista

More reminiscing. Family driving holidays in Europe in the early 80s were worked out from a european road atlas, writing down all the road numbers, distances and junctions. I have no idea how my parents booked the en-route hotels, I can only presume from tourist guides.

Early 90s and my partner (at the time) and I toured eastern US. Most hotels were booked with the UK branch of the chain; but one B&B in New Orleans was selected from a tourist brochure and booked by airmail postcard exchange!

Despite having no computer/tech classes at school, I had a home PC, and I've always worked with data on computers from late 80s onwards - back then it was workstations connected to a mainframe. For one of my annuity runs I had to load a magnetic tape reel onto a reel-to-reel drive, I felt so geeky!

At work in the nineties we had sort of terminals we went and sat at to check our Customers accounts and mark off incoming payments, I suppose early computers. Got to work one day and we all had massive computers on our desks, I'd got a bit of an idea how they worked but most of the staff were clueless and the training came much later on. The graduate intake that year were particularly useful in helping us, I'd just shout one of the kids over when I was stuck.

I left school in '97. We had internet at school, but only to use in IT classes and we didn't use it loads. I remember I used to use Ask Jeeves as a search engine! Mobile phones weren't conmen then. We all had pagers and the lucky ones had BT charge cards. I had one, but it was only set up to call home.

Mobile phones weren't conmen then.

That's an apposite typo - remember those innocent days before the Internet was plagued by hackers and fraudsters?