To wonder how our parents survived without the internet.

[ICanSeeTheSun]

I tend use the internet a lot, from paying bills to clothes shopping.

I also use it to gets medical advice, nothing major but things like normal temperature to treating bites from bugs.

Also I have used the internet to research autism, due to my DS having ASD.

To applying for school places and follow DC schools on twitter/Facebook to get latest updates

I do wonder how my parent managed to bring up 7 kids without the internet.

katese I was going to come on and say that DS2 died at 27 weeks in 1997. As recently as that it was something that wasn't discussed and you were expected to put on a brave face and be grateful for your existing child and as soon you got pregnant with the next you were expected to be over it completely. I found Mnet in about 2010 and it is the only place where I can talk about that and it has given me great comfort. I'm sure somebody more intellectual than me could describe it as a satellite sort of life where one separates from the custom and expectation of reality.

On less deep notes though I'm 54 and we had the internet installed in 2002. The DC were 7 and 4 and we were about 42. People just did things differently - some of the things I remember are:

Using directories, Yellow Pages and Thompson
Keeping Local papers/magazines to look up tradesmen
You phoned or popped into Estate Agents and they sent you brochures in the post
Using the library
Owning an encyclopaedia (especially as a child)
Using travel agents to book holidays
Going on shopping trips for clothes
Life wasn't as instant and it involved more paper
Playing cards/bridge for entertainment
Playing more board games and reading more
Not being contactable 24/7 by every Tom, Dick and Harry especially work
You talked to people more
You frightened yourself less because you couldn't look up symptoms and tended to own a home medical book.
You had to make proper arrangements about meeting people and stick to them
You sent card invitations to people's homes and proper thank you letters (I still think this is nice)
People were less visible
Life was less instant because you had to wait for the post or for a phone call to be returned - at work you were forever getting hold of people on the phone and receiving "memos" in the internal post rather than e-mail.
I think we bought more magazines about subjects that interested us.

I also think we had to be more organised. I even remember life before the cash machines when there was a huge queue in the bank on a Friday as people waited patiently to cash a cheque for their weekend money. No switch or debit cards and very few people had a credit card.

My mother has just got an i-pad - she's 77 and now she emails me to let me know she'll be phoning later

I agree Kate. I'm about to embark on my third round of IVF. It would have been so much harder without the online support from Mumsnet.

I think though that in the pre internet days there were just different ways of doing things and you can't miss what you didn't have. I remember watching a TV program where they took families back to Victorian times to live with the technology they had then. They found it really hard without things like the washing machine. The woman in the program was complaining and moaning about how did women then ever cope etc. The thing is that the women then wouldn't have enjoyed it but they wouldn't have known that there could be an alterative. They hadn't ever known the luxury of a washing machine. I remember my mother at the time saying that there will be luxuries in the future that people will wonder how we ever coped without.

I think we have become very reliant on the internet, however only like we have become very reliant on electricity. How long could you cope without a fridge, freezer, washing machine, kettle or heating? We used to remember all our stories and pass history down through oral tradition. Just because we use books now it doesn't mean we are overly reliant on writing. It's not a bad thing that we rely on the internet, however it is worrying that it is out of our control, but then so is electricity and petrol.

I don't have a smartphone either, so when I'm on the net, it's only at home. Just don't feel the urgency of being linked 24/7.

I do like the internet, it's just not essential to me.

Oh, and we sent photo's to be developed and stuck them in albums! And spent far less time messing about on the internet - I'd have had my beds made by now if the internet didn't exist.

We have older teenagers and I think it has been more positive for them than negative and they have on the whole used it sensibly. I think the critical parallels can be drawn with having a telephone, colour TV and record player when I was a teenager; having car and modern clothes and going to the flicks when my mother was - all those things were perceived as damaging. I just wonder what it will be for my granchildren.

I remember when we got the internet at work, i must have been about 22/23. I could never have imagined what it would turn into.

People are far too reliant on it imo to the detriment of their real lives. I use it for mn, a course i'm doing at work, gardening advice/inspiration, pinterest, recipes and googling. I could function perfectly well without it. I recently deactivated my facebook which has been very liberating.

Life was so much simpler before the internet. Now there are just too many options, too many opinions. Too much imo

And don't forget you ended up reading the back of a shampoo bottle on the loo rather than mumsnetting on your iPhone.

Or just considering things like "what a horrible mirror that is"

We're connected up to our eyeballs here, love technology and still pick up a copy of the Argos book!
I didn't have regular access to the internet for a long time and managed fine, if the whole lot went tomorrow it wouldn't bother me personally. DH's job relies more on it so his work would be more difficult but he'd get around that. The kids would probably cry but deal with it.
My Mum, Dad and Grandma would be bereft though..

When you were new into a city and even more into a country it was harder. It took me ages to work out how things work in uk, how to save money, how to shop cheap, jobs, career, university. It would all be so much easier with internet.

I was saying to dh yesyerday that i have 7 friends that i have met on flights. Those days we were bored at the airport or plane. We chatted to each other, then excanged numbers, met for drink etc. It doesnt happen now!

Career has it - we have far too much choice now. I was around the same age when we got it at work (year or two older perhaps) and feel it has become a distraction. A bit like looking at life through a lens. I love Aldi because there is less choice and simply quality.

Same here, lion. I love shopping at lidl because it's so quick as i'm not standing trying to work out which offer or brand of beans works out kost economical this week. I just pick up beans.

We read books, papers, magazines and visited the library, met friends and family face to face or wrote and kept letters; kept first-aid books and used the local chemist for medical advice (didn't self diagnose); went on shopping trips, talked on the telephone, read newspapers for the latest news; booked holidays through travel agents; stayed up in the small hours for university courses; did research from real books, not American dissertations and Wikipedia, had photographs developed at chemists; and wrote most of our paperwork by hand, therefore not nearly so much!
Of course the internet is an improvement, particularly for communication, information and keeping in touch, but it does seem that no one is ever away from work, even on holiday. And it is a great time waster!

Exactly.

Not sure when choice became the be all and end all, or indeed became choice of 40 beans/loo roll etc rather than 2...

"In fact I had much more time to do stuff, as I wasn't constantly online like now. We used to do stuff like watch tv!

I love the Internet, but find it really annoying when people are on phones all the time, and don't pay attention when you try and talk to them"

Absolutely agree with that!

We didn't have electricity till I was 14. Gas lights with mantels v fragile when lit with Match.
Telephone box end of road. You set a time and waited outside till it rang.
They rented 8in tele when I was 15 (o levels coming up).
I worked in database design etc and use internet all time - now 72.
I bet that lady who walks to Argos (PP) is fitter than me.
being retired I don't really need smart phone have laptop and LL.
email more than letters now.
Cant book doctor online but shops deliver and clothing can be returned if fit is bad.
I love technology so does cat with chip reading door - no visits from other cats.

I've really grown up with technology and I think it's made us more fearful.

It's so easy to look up something online that I hardly ever have cause to ask a question in real life and subsequently feel anxious about doing so in case I look nosy, picky or stupid. This is silly!

I feel especially nervous about talking to somebody I feel has authority over me (such as a landlord ) and I absolutely hate using the phone. I would rather text or email, a million times over. I don't even like phoning friends/family although I enjoy talking to them when I do it.

I do sometimes put my phone away and speak to people next to me on a bus/train or whatever but it's unusual and sometimes it can be offputting. Especially as it's "the norm" not to talk so the percentage of nutters who try to talk to you are so much higher than the percentage of normal, non threatening people.

My mum or dad had to go into a branch of the bank during opening hours to get the cash for the week, which was then kept in a drawer at home.

In some ways it was better, not all of people's lives put online for others to see.

In others it's better now, people get more of a voice and can share information in a way that wasn't possible before.

there was a time with no internet?

I can't even imagine/remember the time with no iphones!

I wish I could remember the first thing I googled and how it was to get the first email.

NO F.I (repeat)

Penelope Leach books for parenting advice, and you spent Saturdays trailing around the shops for things. On the other hand, you could buy things like verucca socks everywhere without having to plan ahead and order them specially off the internet. Quite a lot of formerly everyday items are now apparently unavailable in your average shop.

Oh yes, and I spent a great deal of time lost. Or waiting for people. Hours each week.

I wish I could remember the first thing I googled and how it was to get the first email.

I don't remember that either, but I do remember that there was no google. I used Mosaic as my web browser and my email address was a long string of numbers.

Yes Boffin, I would spend hours waiting for people.