"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 started my working life using a manual typewriter (to type up the electoral register, if you believe!). Lots of Tippex!
In my next job we had a huge 'computer' that held a database of names that we could search. It was about the size of a freestanding cooker. Held very basic information that led you to an exact location in the (paper) filestore.
Then I had an electric typewriter with a one line memory.
Then a Compaq word processor with Displaywrite 4 on it. That was a revelation!
At this point the fastest way of written communication between offices was to ring the messengers and tell them 'I've got a Red'. Someone would come and hand deliver your Red to its destination. We even had overseas messengers.
I wad given a laptop (heavy enough to crush your thigh bones) in 1989 but it was just for word processing as I was working on a very large important Report (which was stored on compact disc).
Don't think I received a coherent email until 1997, they used to come through with all sorts of weird symbols scattered around. And I first searched the internet in 1998 via dial up. I think I finally got to the actual website in 1999!

In teresting.

I guess I fall into that category. I left school in 1984 - there were four computers in the school. Each pupil got a short lesson. That was it. I wanted to do an O Level in Computer Studies but had to go to the Technical College on an evening after school to do that. There was no Windows, mouse or anything to make it easily navigable.

2000 I worked in an office for the Local Authority. We typed. and typed. and typed. We had computers and saved all the work onto the local server. I don't recall much use of the internet. All telephone messages were handwritten into a book. There were a lot of telephone calls. After a couple of years we had an internal email system - which is how we sent messages instead of writing down, and chasing staff.

I didn't have a mobile phone until 1997 - I was pregnant and DH thought I should have one, just in case. It wasn't a 'brick' but was pretty large - and didn't do text. Just calls. i rarely used it as it was expensive to make calls.

I love having the internet to hand. My phone is always in my pocket - I can search, buy, book anything at anytime. It's amazing. I have reconnected with old friends and family.

However I do have fond memories of being younger and y'know managing without it all? Would arrange to meet friends at the bus stop for pub night at x time - and everyone would turn up on time. No option to change it or be just a few minutes late. As kids we played with other kids. There was very little other entertainment. No videos, barely any TV (and we weren't allowed to sit in and watch it unless really bad weather or off school sick). I read books. I struggle to read a book now as am easily distracted.

I worked for a well known company in 1976-8. They had a computer which took up the whole 4th floor of a tower block. The people who worked with it, 'programmers', were mystical people with skills no one else could comprehend. The office staff used to fill in data sheets with one number or letter per square and send them for 'computer operators' to put the figures into the computer. If we made a mistake it could throw the whole system out.

I was born in 1990 so the first part of my childhood was analogue - I remember buying cassettes from Woolworths for my personal tape player

Then around 2001 we had basic internet lessons, how to use Google, how to send an email, etc. Christmas 2002 brought my first mobile and then we got internet at home in 2003. I can touch type thanks to countless hours spent chatting on MSN messenger

I remember being blown away by smartphones and having the internet in my hand. Previously there was just that "wap" thing on my old flip phone and if you accidentally clicked on that you had to furiously press cancel in case you were charged

All the people saying they googled stuff when internet first came out were way ahead of their time because Google was a pretty obscure search engine till late 90s,early 2000s. Most people used Yahoo or Altavista before then. Now it's difficult to imagine "googling" something without the "Google" . Imagine telling people to "I'm yahooing it"

I remember moving to a different town.

I had to call every estate agent and get them to post me their weekly letting lists.
I also had to go to the library and use the yellow pages for the area I was moving to to write to different companies asking if they had jobs.

I remember my dad getting a free internet trial disc from HMV and we all sat round the desktop computer and no one knew what to search for, or how to search for it! That must have been 1998/99 (I would have been about 15). By 2002/03 I remember going to my parents and using their internet to search for info about pregnancy as I was pregnant with dd, so in those 4 years it must have become a lot more mainstream (my folks are not trendsetters by nature!)

I also remember in about 1996/97 my boyfriend had a phone that could send text messages and had no one to send them to, everyone said how rubbish it was and he was thoroughly mocked for wasting his money!

I'm 36 now, to answer your op and I feel very technologically stunted- I have found my internet 'comfort zone' I guess and stayed there, but probably don't use it to my advantage or get the most if of what I pay for. My Dh is far worse than me- he has a decent phone and computer for work but rarely uses them for anything except calling people and typing letters!

The lurching buzz of a modem connecting is the soundtrack to my late teens.

It's my birthday today and I'm 53,
So old enough to remember using the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the junior version to do my home work at primary school and secondary.
We did have a humongous computer in the Maths department, the only people allowed to use it was the teaching staff and pupils in the top sets.
Although I do remember being show how to make a very very basic program.

I didn't get my 1st mobile until 1997, and had to travel for work.
The internet arrived in our house in 1999, a year after my eldest was born.

As a child I had a callous on my second finger from the pen/writing
I’d forgotten about this! I had one too, it’s long gone because the only writing I do nowadays is the occasional signature.

Interestingly, DD is currently planning her dissertation/master's and the field she wants to work in is computing/AI (I don't understand the technical terms being all ancient and stuff as I am). She tells me that it's a huge growth market at the moment, not least because Gen Z have grown up using their smartphones for everything and a lot of them are barely computer literate.

I’m 42. Because universities were early adopters of email I had an email address at uni but I didn’t own a computer of any sort until maybe three years after and no mobile phone until a year after graduation.
My first graduate workplace had email but we still went to the library for info to use special dedicated computers to search newspaper or journal archives then get the actual article off the shelf.
Email didn’t support attachments really so graphic design files were burned onto cd and sent around London by motorcycle couriers.

This thread made me think of this image!

I was born in the early 80s. I can make kids’ eyes pop out by saying when I left school in 1997 we had one computer with the internet and it wasn’t for general use! At uni we used the internet but we still had to look up information in books and hand search through journals for relevant articles (I graduated in 2004). DH was looking at photos last night and DD (6) asked what the negatives were! She couldn’t understand the concept that photography was expensive and you couldn’t see what the photo looked like until it was developed!

I do marvel at how easily information is accessed now and how much easier life is in general. I used to get horribly lost trying to navigate routes using route map and driving!

As a child I had a callous on my second finger from the pen/writing

I still have one! I don't write that much these days so it's not as pronounced but the lump is still there.

Thinking now how much I use our family WhatsApp group to share snippets of life with my in-laws and brother, it makes me sad to think that I went on my gap year then to University and travelling again and would go months and months hardly communicating with my parents (both now dead). Maybe the odd quick phone call or a postcard. (Do people even send holiday postcards any more?!).

If that were now we’d have stayed much more part of each others’ lives when I left home. I obviously didn’t realise at the time that they’d die so young and now I really regret that “lost” time.

I got my first mobile with internet capabilities in about 2003. It was on Tesco mobile and the internet on it was free - it was a glitch on Tesco's part as they didn't realise it was a thing people would use so didn't charge for it. Consequently I spent AGES on it. It was basic WAP sites/chatrooms - because Tesco was on O2 it had access to the O2 chatrooms where you could pick a subject (music, news, sport, 'adult' , etc) and chat away. I had many a heated debate on the news chatroom. Shows some things never change!

The first time I had a phone where internet was chargeable was about a year later. It came from an advert in the paper where you called he company and you'd apply over the phone. The adverts had offers like 100 minutes, 100 texts and unlimited same network numbers for £25pm. But internet was something bonkers like 10p a minute. If you accidentally connected and didn't notice your next bill (which arrived in the post) was a doozy. I speak from bitter experience!

I remember first getting computers at school probably in 1998/9? We all marvelled over Ask Jeeves asking it completely innocuous questions and being amazed at how quickly it could respond .

I didn’t have the internet at home until 2005. I had dial up for a few years prior to that at my Dad’s house (he had a lot more cash than my Mum so had a desktop AND a laptop- posh ). It was such bad internet but I loved it.

I don’t think I had a phone with internet until 2008 so I was quite late to the party. I didn’t start internet shopping until 2010 tbf.

I can remember when Blackberries were the phone of choice! My partner had one when we met eight years ago. They seems SO dated now.

I was early 20s when I first used it but it doesn’t feel that different just a layer on top of life

I remember using Internet cafes when I started travelling around then to check hotmail

I tell the dc I had no internet so they have to learn to be bored and do other stuff - they do see it as the olden days

I like the reminder of saying w w w - forgot about that

We didn't have broadband at home until 2013! We couldn't afford it/a computer. I had a basic smartphone (Nokia ESomething) which we did everything from - I had an all you can eat data contract which was £15 a month (in those days AYCE had a 2gb a month limit because that's what they deemed enough). Poor DD had to go to the library in all weathers almost every evening to do her homework, which was all set online despite lots of kids still not having internet access at home. I don't know how they'd manage now with all the library closures.

My dad was a systems analyst and we got the internet in the early nineties. It was an expensive dial up system and only my dad was allowed to use it!
I was allowed limited access during my a-levels and I can remember my dad hopping around muttering "Don't be too long, it's a penny a minute you know!" When I'd done what I needed I handed him a pound coin and told him that should more than cover it!
I did have easy internet access at university (1998-2001) and the university I went to had huge computer labs. Free internet, 5p per print out.
I then moved into private halls that were newly built. They had actual internet sockets in every room, but it was very expensive so I didn't use it.
I'm not at all nostalgic for my 80's childhood. The 80's were shite.
I like having the internet. I like that I can watch Netflix whenever I want and not be tied to a broadcasters schedule.

obviously the last 100 years have seen amazing things, but in the last 20 years innovations seem to be tumbling over each other

That’s no different to how it has always been. Each new revolution as far back as the agricultural revolution has a slow start as new things are developed and are the preserve of the wealthy, then they become more affordable and are everywhere relatively quickly. Look at how the industrial revolution changed the nation from cottage industries to mass production resulting in the rapid growth of towns and cities.

23 thousand cars in the U.K. in 1904, over 100 thousand by 1910.

Robotics were in their infancy in the late 50s but by the early 60s were introduced to General Motors manufacturing.

In the 50s, household appliances were the thing. The era where labour intensive household chores were replaced by machines to do everything for you.

The only difference with today is the innovations are in tech rather than machinery but the innovation is no faster than it was previously. We’ve been working on AI for decades and still aren’t quite there yet.

I make a point of taking daily walks and looking at long distances, focusing on objects far away. I feel like so much of my indoor life is spent on screens, close up, and have read how it's affecting eyes. When not mindlessly surfing the 'net or TV, I do cross stitch and read actual books-more close up things! Interesting article came out on this in June, detailing possible bone changes in young people from always looking down at phones!

www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/20/horns-are-growing-young-peoples-skulls-phone-use-is-blame-research-suggests/

That’s no different to how it has always been

I think the pace of change accelerated significantly in the last 200 or so years due to

1. the development of science (leading to (2) , effective medicine etc)
2. the harnessing of steam and then electricity, which vastly increased the amount of work(in a physics sense!) that could be accomplished.

Transport faster than a horse or boat.
Electricity.
Flight - from Kitty Hawk to the Moon in 66 years.