What do you miss the most about life before the internet?

[Beatrixpotterspencil]

If you are old enough to have reached adulthood before it really became a household thing?
I love the net, I can't tell a lie! But there are some things I really miss from 'before'.

Such as:
The simplicity, from booking a holiday to clothes shopping, and when watching the news only once a day was normal. Feeling satisfied with a quiet hour in the library researching, and not having a device between you and the world perpetually.

I miss how slow fashion felt, how there was less pressure to 'do all the things'.

I miss that weird, organic way of finding things out for yourself.

I miss how slower paced things felt.

I miss how not being able to find data on everything actually made life seem less stressful. You weren't dizzy with indecision over which hairdryer to buy

There was less info, less choice, and less access to global affairs in general, but whether this has improved life or not I really don't know. But it's here now, and there is much to love about it, as well as to criticise.

Anyone else?

Letters.
I have boxes and boxes from parents, relatives, friends, lovers.

Looking forward to a weekly or monthly magazine.
Not already knowing everyone's business so had things to talk about.
People (myself included) not being the subject matter expert on everything because you deep dive the topic of it interests you.
Not attempting glam or even stylish just getting dressed and going.

Dont start me on mobile phones!

ooh yes! and photos from the shop - putting them in albums and sitting going through them with friends and family. Pinning them on the wall/fridge, etc. We can still do that now, but it isn't the same

Also, when the creation of a mix tape was a work of art instead of a shuffle.

People talking to each other instead of staring at phones 24/7

Going to blockbuster for a video 😂

Yes! Mix Tapes.
I kept my card inserts and recreated playlists buy no, not the same at all.

Definitely writing & receiving letters.
But also being able to stay out of touch with people for days & weeks at a time. On holiday you really did leave everything behind.
Being able to go to a concert or event without being stuck behind a sea of mobile phones.

Not being available 24/7. I'm not a big talker, etc and do value my own space.

Everything not being instant.
Sitting with a coffee after the kids went to school, reading the cartoon section in the newspaper and doing the crossword.
Waiting until my dh brought his laptop back from work so I could type up some stuff for a coarse I was doing. He had to print it out at work so I could post it off

Digging in your brain to remember things instead of googling.
When I worked in an office in the 80s we could sometimes take hours or even days to remember the name of that bloke who was in a film with that woman who etc.

My own ability to focus properly on a book.

Ditto to focus on a film without also scrolling at the same time.

Ditto to remember phone numbers.

Cabbies who had done the Knowledge- it was like a super-power. Now any dick with a phone can do the same thing or better.

Generally, the sense of knowledge as primarily something that you stored in your head rather than in your phone. Previously, if I wanted to know something I'd look it up in a book and then I'd know it. Now, half the time I look it up on my phone then immediately forget it- it's as if I've outsourced my own memory to my phone. (This may also be to do with growing old, to be fair.)

People experiencing things more in the moment rather than filming all the time.

Being able to look at pictures in galleries and beautiful views without people shoving phones in front of you to take pictures.

Finding things serendipitously rather than them becoming trends due to influencers, Instagram etc.

Going to the pub and talking to people rather than everyone sitting round playing on their phones.

News from reliable, responsible sources rather than people believing the crud they read on facebook or twitter. Critical thinking and understanding opposite views.

Speaking to an actual person without being stuck in a phone queue for half an hour ('We are experiencing a high volume of calls...... please check our website for an answer to your query.......)when trying to conduct a business transaction.

Less choice and information - I have come to the conclusion that too much choice and information stymies decision making, everything from choosing a holiday to buying a new potato peeler. We had some fantastic holidays before it was de riguer to read every review.

The way the internet makes a few people very, very wealthy and allows a very few people to control every facet of our lives - we think we make choices, when in fact most of our choices are made for us, we just don't realise.

Just living in a smaller, quieter fashion. So many young people seem so unhappy, chasing the latest fad, comparing themselves to others and finding themselves wanting.

Getting all the travel agent brochures and trying to choose a holiday on pictures alone.

I too miss all the things you listed op.

Arranging to meet people at a fixed time in a fixed place (under the clock at Waterloo Station anyone?).
(OK that was pre mobile phones more than pre-internet...)

Doing research meant opening books, rather than eleventy billion Web pages.

Less choice and information - I have come to the conclusion that too much choice and information stymies decision making, everything from choosing a holiday to buying a new potato peeler. We had some fantastic holidays before it was de riguer to read every review.

I really agree with this. And most of your other points.
Whilst what we have at our fingertips now is so fantastic, it doesn't seem to have made people happier in general. It's an odd one isn't it?
I agree with the sentiment behind 'Black Mirror', that it is a reflection of our culture and darkest potential. Even if you account for the wonderful elements, the more troublesome aspects are terrifying.

I have this (darkly humorous) image of us all evolving into pools of wasted flesh that can no longer use our legs, with two little eyes peeping out like antennae..... and these very agile, long fingers slap-tapping away on our phones. We will chant 'Alexa, make me think of something, I can't do it myself, I'm bored", as the food cartons and anti depressants pile up around us.

It's impossible not to conflate it with generally being young, which probably rose-tints my view of the era.

I will say the internet was much better in the very early 90s when hardly anyone else was on it!

I miss that work stayed at work. If your boss wanted to contact you, then they had to phone on the landline and hope you were in, and they’d probably pay overtime for the privilege. Now it’s a deluge of email / wattsapp and an expectation that employees are available 24/7.

But what I really miss is that it was so much harder for aggressive weirdos to find each other and then create groups large enough to cause social problems. The internet is basically a giant ‘weirdos unite’ party. From ISIS soliders in Syria recruiting teenage girls in Britain, to paedophiles and incels egging each other on, to white supremacists, creeps making bombs in their shed, and trans activists lobbying to house rapists with vulnerable female prisoners and giving chemical castration drugs to kids… Sure we had social problems in the 1980s but eg terrorists had to actually bother to put on a balaclava and go out looking for each other, they didn’t pop up as a suggested Facebook group.

Also miss not having my phone on me. Can’t stop checking it I don’t know why.

Gigs where you don't have three thousand people in front of you holding their phones up to film the 'content'.

(Although booking gigs is so much easier now. And I don't miss people smoking at gigs, to be balanced about it.)

I think I preferred just knowing.....a bit less. I can find anything now, but each result contradicts the other....
There was something to be said for not being so microscopically aware of every damn thing.

I don[t think it's rose tinted ageing specs though. I think it is most likely having been alive whilst straddling a new era. You have the before and the after, unlike a 14 yr old. You can see both sides of the abyss. And the net is probably one of the fastest, most world changing things ever to happen in human history - to be on the curve of such a new and unknown vista is bound to cause some existential angst and a sense of dislocation - as well as excitement!

Going to a restaurant without knowing in advance what would be on the menu.

So true @Wor I once got back to work on a Monday and the boss having kittens because he 'd forgotten I wasn't working Friday and I was camping with a hippy boyfriend.
Now if I take too long having a pee I get a text.
Spot on about the nutters organising too, after Sutcliffe was caught there was a weird sense of it's done now. We could carry on. Now I realise when one gets caught it actually inspires five more!

Enjoying things in the moment and spending time with each other. I visited a city this weekend and whenever I went for a meal everyone was taking photos of their food and drink. There would be couples nicely dressed up or families having dinner and they'd all just be looking at their phone the whole time! I went to the city with a family member who was just as bad. Uploading photos to instagram and then giving me a narration of who had commented and what they'd said 🙄