"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?

I had used the Internet a bit before working, at University- in the college computer room. The main search engine was called Lycos I think. I used to spend a lot of time on a chat room for Paul Simon fans!

Nobody has made the fairly obvious point that it’s pretty amazing that we can have this discussion right now from the comfort of our phones/iPads. To have instant interaction with hundreds of people from the comfort of your living room was unthinkable when I was a teenager.

Just be grateful now that you didn't have to use logarithms or a slide rule in your maths exams!

Our flight was delayed by two days on my first holiday abroad with my boyfriend (I was 20) and I knew my mum and dad would be so worried when I didn't come home at the appropriate time. We had no telephone in the home so I had to send a telegram!!! 1972.

The internet is one thing but I think being able to carry it in your pocket on a tablet or phone and cheap data has had almost the same effect again.
Rather than having to be at a desktop computer or laptop with wifi.

@Yabbers in the context of human civilisation we are an incredibly small group of people to have witnessed such change in our lifetime.

As has been mentioned, our children will not recognise the life we led before the internet and smartphones. What generation before us has experienced such rapid change?

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

I went to New Zealand, probably in about 2003, and there was a radio ad where they read out the www bit of the website address as "dub dub dub" - I still think of that quite a lot, idk why - v efficient of them!!

I was at university in the late 90s and had a word processor for essays, but I don't remember doing any research etc over the internet. We just used the library.

I just don't think you can get it across to kids now that that's what you had to do if you wanted to find anything out. I almost can't imagine it myself.

The PP who mentioned house hunting - my mum was telling me that when they were buying a house and my DSis and I were pre-schoolers, she had to get us in the buggy and get a bus across town to the estate agents, to look through their listings which took a couple of hours (and was probably a massive faff). Whereas now we could find the same info while the kids were playing/sleeping or whatever.

Eee, times have changed!

Grappling with the microfiche reader to see the library catalogue - sliding the viewing bar across & down to peer at the listings, took ages to find the row/column you wanted.

Planning a trip to Aus/NZ with campervan hire - involved contacting the Aus/NZ tourist boards in London to get names of hire companies, faxing them, we were so pleased when we'd set it up. Just a few mouse clicks now!

Plans to meet up with friends, stayed the way they were - you couldn't change them constantly on the hoof by text like we can now. I think it made us more disciplined/careful about arrangements.

Has anyone mentioned on line dating & porn? I think the anonymity of the Internet has brought out the worst in human nature in those 2 areas..

whensa I agree

@Chunkers
The ‘computer’ at my first job was a screen and keyboard moulded into one unit (no mouse) green courier on black background. The processor was bigger than a 4 door Ikea Pax wardrobe. It was a data processing company, so perhaps regular computers were smaller

I worked in the data processing centre that handled all the freight customs transactions at Heathrow in the early 70s. Our "VDUs" (visual display unit - were yours called that?) were small screens with a separate keyboard (at least I thought so but having read yours, maybe not) & like yours, green on black. They had a slot where you had to insert a "badge" - a flat black plastic thing with electronic innards - & then log in, & it knew who you were, & what you could & could not access.

The mainframe computers, & tape drives & card readers & printers & other hardware, were housed in 2 vast rooms on the ground floor of the building - the mainframe room with the tape drives was much colder than everywhere else. The tape drives were each about 6' tall & 3' square & there were loads of them. I think there were 3 processors and they were huge too.

I believe the combined processing power of all that machinery was much much less than 1 smartphone

DH and I were a couple when we were young,(1978-1983) and reunited years later(2007). We remember when I was 17 and he was 18, no internet, no cell phones. If we went out for the day, our parents had no way to call or text. We went places, and visited friends and kept ourselves entertained. We went to the library to study and check out interesting books. He had a car so we were able to go to the beach, the movies, the malls. We could only call each other on the one house phone, located where we had no privacy, so we were always out, instead of in with the parents! I feel sorry for the young kids today. We had so much fun, and freedom, and our parents couldn't track us! The internet brings the world to us, but is also limiting us in some ways. When children go off to summer camps, the first thing they do is take the phones away-so kids can enjoy being active and just be kids. I'm glad I grew up when I did, much as I appreciate all that computers bring to our lives now.

I don't quite get the people saying it's unusual. It applies to everyone over about 30, which currently is most people.

I'm not sure it's "unique", it encompasses quite a range of generations really. We didn't have Internet at school until 6th form, had to look e eryrhibg up from a book or Encyclopedia Britanica disk on the word processor then suddenly ay 17ee spent our lunchtimes randomly asking Jeeves utter nonsense!!

I'm an early eighties child. I very clearly remember Live and Kicking asking for people to enter a competition by sending a postcard to their address or emailing...whatever their email was. I couldn't understand why on earth anyone would want an email, though I had no idea what it was, when you could just pop it in the post. Later, I recall discussing with a friend that email can't be very convenient being on the computer, since you had to go to the library to get it and that post coming straight to you would always be better. Neither of us thought it'd catch on!

@1300cakes yes but everyone who is alive now is a very very very small proportion of human civilisation. We are taking about our generation.

There were generations of people who lived through the Roman Empire, The Industrial Revolution, two World Wars etc. This is a very particular era of development that has irreversibly changed our entire civilisation. And only those of us alive right now have witnessed it first hand. That's pretty special.

I think the first time I really was aware was at university in 1998 with the very basic email. And I remember Ask Jeeves! But it formed no part of my studies, we used the library search facility but I'm pretty sure that was just a database rather than the Internet. By the time I started teacher training in 2002 things had moved on a bit, but it was still a good few years before it became integral to our lives.

I remember life without internet, I'm 35.

I remember being given our first computer when I was about 10. It didn't connect to the internet but we had floppy disks with encarta in that we could use for homework!!

First computer with internet access at about age 14. From the days when your mum would shout at you to get off the internet so she could use the phone (usually mid- messenger chat with that for boy from school).

I was nearing school leaver age when our school got in a string of word processors which were eventually connected to the web.

My first home experience of it was through AOL. Which is a bit like giving a kid a cuddly toy and saying look Stevie we got you a real dog to play with.

If I wanted to see friends I'd sneak a call on my parents land-line, or just walk or cycle to theirs, even if they weren't on my side of town.

Payphones were so important.

Newspapers for movie screenings and job hunting.

I have two children who have never not had technology. And I'm enthralled by some of it but I also think somewhere down the line, eventually, it might or will kick us in the butts because so many things which were mega important and overlooked now.

This is why I'm sat in a tent with my kids and the only devices allowed are my phone and my model of Kindle which only does actual books, not internet and apps.

We've played, drawn, read, I made up a story to get kiddo to bed one night and finished it today while plaiting her hair. Tomorrow we are walking to the pub along the river. I've got garden games and board and card games.

I just wanted to get back to us, again.

I was at university in the late 90s and had a word processor for essays, but I don't remember doing any research etc over the internet. We just used the library.

Afaik journals weren't online yet at that stage. Wikipedia wasn't started till 2001 and obviously took time to populate (not that it's for serious research).:

I wonder if academic standards in research type contexts are higher now that it is easier to do the basic research online. Or is it just easier to get the same marks?

I'd say easier to get the same marks! I am doing a second degree now and as I did in the 1990s I usually include three or so journal articles. But now I just look them up at home in five mins and copy and paste quotes; instead of spending hours finding and photocopying them in the library. Still getting the same marks as I did then!

As has been mentioned, our children will not recognise the life we led before the internet and smartphones. What generation before us has experienced such rapid change?

Have you talked to your parents? To their parents?

My grandma was born in 1920. She died last year but when we spoke about the changes she had seen over her life, they were massive. She was 15 before her house had power. Older still before she had an indoor bathroom. She saw the invention of the TV, movies (as we know them now) the first computers, calculators. She lived in an era before cars were common place - all things I couldn’t imagine the world without.

She was nearly when she did her first computer class and started sending me emails.

I don’t consider the change from when I was a child nearly as dramatic and fast paced as it was over her 96 years.

Errol that's right, I don't think journals were online then. I did some of my degree in the US and even there, which I assume would be ahead of the UK in terms of internet use? - everything was microfiche (or hard copy journals).

I was a history student though so not likely the stuff I needed was at the forefront of computerisation!

I am 46 and def in this category. There was no internet when I was at uni 1991-94. We used books and looked things up on microfiche. I also had a word processor which I was very privileged to have that had the world's smallest screen - not sure how I managed to write anything on it!

There were also no commonplace mobile phones yet. Just the yuppies had those massive ones!

It's so mad how far we've come in such a short time. In 20 years you've come from that to practically everyone owing a small computer that they carry around in their pocket and can use to call from anywhere, access a wealth of information in the internet, access and send emails and texts, do banking and shopping online and it also doubles up as a camera! It's pretty amazing how far technology has come in that short time.

in the context of human civilisation we are an incredibly small group of people to have witnessed such change in our lifetime

Presumably when referring to herself as being in a unique generation she was referring to generations who are still alive today.

What generation before us has experienced such rapid change? - I think its the speed of change that is striking - obviously the last 100 years have seen amazing things, but in the last 20 years innovations seem to be tumbling over each other (ifyswim)

I worked for a US company - and in the US from 89-91 - my perception was that we were pretty much in sync in terms of internet use. As we are a scientific software company, we were early adopters.