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.

Am chuckling at beatingwings comment :)

I work using the internet now, and make full use of it. But don't imagine that in pre -internet days we were all in loincloths "ploughing up the earth with the aresebone of a giraffe"!

Anothermonkey - I agree. I had a slight red swelling on the side of my eye a few months ago ( gone now) and I can't tell you the sleepless nights I had while waiting for an appointment due to google. Turns out is was a minor problem and now resolved, but one of the problems is the freeflow of information, much of which is mindless chatter without perspective.

I am not advocating that less information is a good thing but it is difficult to assess the provenance of the information. THere are so many "quack sites" especially for health related matters that it it hard to sift through accurate or what is well researched. I tend to stick to the NHS web sites for info, otherwise I am quacking up the garden goosepath.

"What a huge waste of time......employing the card catalogue in the library"
I'd still back myself to get a class number of a book from a card catalogue before the computer in our library manages it...

Rowinng- I can't lay claim to the originality of the comment- but a prize for anyone able to tell me which movie it comes from ( without using Google)

Shirley Valentine! No Google, i promise, I'm just old

Well done Floisme! One of my favourite movies. ( I was lying btw- there is no prize)

I'll let you off, beatingwings as you've made me laugh, just thinking about that scene again

We had internet when the kids were little, but didn't use it for shopping etc. (probably internet shopping was only just coming in).

We house hunted when DD was a baby, and online property listings hadn't started yet, so we had to get the weekly paper, trawl through the paragraphs of text, and just go along and look (open viewings are common here).

I do remember one time going to pay my Road Tax at the PO, I had to go into town with two small whiny children, only to be told I'd brought last year's MOT certificate, and another time I'd brought the wrong piece of insurance documentation. Could have cried! Would much rather do stuff like that online.

However, I waste lots of time online now (no self-control I guess!) And having shopping choice online just means you get fussy, and spend ages looking for the perfect item instead of just going to two shops then picking something.

Of course we managed just fine (I am in my mid late 50s) - we are not all dinosaurs you know .

One thing I think the internet doesn't help with is the lack of community spirit - the fact so many people (and you see it on Mumsnet all the time) find it difficult to make friends, I am convinced it is because people get caught up with 'social media' and don't bother to make friends the old fashioned way. All the angst about misinterpreting text messages,Facebook worries etc etc - what is wrong with making an old fashioned phone call?

Of course I use the internet now mainly mumsnet, but I rarely shop on line - for me shopping is a social activity, I positively enjoy going shopping and talking to real people. I don't bother with FB, twitter or anything like that - and I have a huge circle of real life friends.

Agree with Not - I waste far too much time on the internet though.

I told DHin our courting days that I'd have no use of the internet

Now I'm on here everyday

beatingwings Your movie quote is from Shirley Valentine

The internet may have downsides for those who are established in homogeneous, close-knit communities (the whole 'chatting at the shops' thing) but is fantastic for those who are isolated for any reason. I'm an expat and while I'm very integrated where I live, the internet is a major major part of my invaluable connection to the UK and, as I live rurally, is the only way I could ever hope to get hold of things like English books for my children when I need them. Then there are people who have suffered traumas (as in the article someone linked to) and those who are or feel different from those around them (another PP mentioned LGBT).

The internet, more precisely MN, saved my breastfeeding - the hospital where dc1 was born did their best to ruin it and then he refused to feed from me for weeks. The advice and support I got here, plus my bloody-mindedness, kept me going. I ended up bf dc1 for 4.5 years and dc2 for 3.

And it's through forums like this one that I know many wonderful people, many of whom I have met and visited/have visited me in RL, whom I would never have got to know otherwise.

When I first met DH in what my darling offspring call 'the Olden Days' he told me about a friend of his who had moved to Australia and was staying in touch with his family by a new-fangled invention called "e-mail".
I thought 'that'll never catch on'

Anyhow, I am 48, I use the internet a lot: at home, for shopping and at work. My parents, in their late 70s/early 80s, use it too but still don't really trust it (Wifi gets switched off whenever the computer is not in use…)

'It takes a village to raise a child' is very true IMO - in my case (abroad, no family around, paid childcare) MN has been my 'village' for a number of years. And I wish I'd known about it when I first had DS1 11 years ago.

Otoh, t'interweb is also a monumental time sucker and hours can get lost down some absurd rabbit hole...

Picardy, yes, MN saved my BFing 'career' as well - shame it took to DS3 before I had the help I needed. From random internet strangers and words on a screen

Yes I agree, it is a lifeline for contact with family, news and shopping to us here in rural France. Barely used by our neighbours though (just as well because we drop below half a meg if more than two households are on line), no internet food shopping here and an Amazon delivery always involves an anguished phone call because they can't find us.
I am in my sixties, was an early adopter and remember the early days of Minitel in France and TTNS in the UK (and that was painful). I was also involved in training the first batches of teachers to use the internet and remember loads of people who said they would never use it, ever.
Life before the internet as people have said involved libraries, yellow pages, face to face transactions. Just like it still is here in France. Recently I needed an energy survey doing so I booked and paid for it on line. Cue anguished phone call to say they didn't cover this far out in the countryside and could only return the money I had paid on credit card by post. Grr....

We managed perfectly well without the Internet. We'd never had it so didn't miss it. There were a lot more high street bank branches, shops, libraries etc as the country wasn't set up for the Internet.

We only miss it if we don't have it because we're used to it and almost everything is geared towards the use of the Internet now.

We managed just fine.... most people of my generation (geez I'm only 50) have more real life friends than internet friends, can use reference materials, speak without LOLz-ing and go a whole day without an electronic gadget (I sometimes don't switch on my mobile phone even..... ) without withdrawal symptoms setting in....

And I'm speaking as someone who had their career in computing, when I had learned at school on a graphite card reader computer the size of a mini.

The internet and the varied gadgets used to access it are a time sucking vortex... put them down, switch them off and enjoy the real world...

...sometimes....

I do wonder how people did my job (journalist) without it. Well, actually I know as my first newsroom had no access to it. I was doing a piece on rail safety and had to call the archive department to find out what was the final death toll in a notorious rail crash. I got my answer back three hours later once they'd gone through the news cuttings .

These days if I'm listening to someone and they reference a report I've not read I can be looking at it on my phone in under a minute.

It's certainly easier with the internet!

Remember having to go to the bank to have to pay in money or whatever, now online banking means no leaving the house! Having to go to travel agents to book holidays as a family drove my mum and dad mad as me and my brother would constantly moan how bored we were, can now do that online to! I detest shopping and still remember how much of a pain it was going as a child with your parents so glad I have online click and collect :D

I think the internet has massive pros and cons. For me I like the fact I can scour for the best price and discount vouchers, but unfortunetly that comes at the expense of shops in the high street that can't beat that price. Can't remember the last time I bought a book in a book shop!

And I don't think there would be half as much vanity if we didn't have the facility to post constant photos of ourselves. Let's face it, you wouldn't have taken a picture, printed it out then posted to a lamppost for everyone to see 20 years ago, would you?

And online bullying is a massive issue.

never mind our parents how the hell did we manage without the internet back in the 70s 80s and 90s....
amazingly well, looking back

I love the internet - it makes so many things so much more straightforward and doable from home/work.

My DPs, however do not have the internet as my DF is a technophobe who cannot programme their video (or equivalent - whatever it is, it ain't the latest technology, but does work with Freeview), will not use a cash machine and thinks the internet is the root of evil as far as I can tell.

The annoying thing is that they keep asking me and others to do things online for them and to look things up for them. I have pointed out they have all the time in the world to i) go to the local library and ii) will not have their bank account emptied by going online.

There is light at the end of the tunnel though: my DM wants to shock, horror get a laptop so she can Skype the GC. She asked my DP for advice on what to get recently. I watch this space......

I do wonder how people did my job (journalist) without it. Well, actually I know as my first newsroom had no access to it. I was doing a piece on rail safety and had to call the archive department to find out what was the final death toll in a notorious rail crash. I got my answer back three hours later once they'd gone through the news cuttings

I was in the local news room of a BBC radio station.
I remember calling up the local police news line which had a recorded message of anything that had happened that day. We had a telex machine for anything of national importance that needed reporting, but that would only go off in an emergency like the Queen dying.
Other than that we would get the headlines 'down the line' from the nearest city station which would be recorded onto reel to reel tape.

It is not "easier" sometimes though....

Online banking requires the remembering (or writing down ) of "secure" (ha!) passwords... it requires you to make sure your devices are protected by virus/scam checkers which cost money, it often requires that you keep your home system up to date or fit stupid devices to them. Nobody is secure enough... I worked in computing and computer security for 28 years... I do not do internet banking .

It also gives you palpitations every time you hear of a new scam/virus/malware attack on the news.

I go to the bank when I am in town, no big hassle. Less time expended overall.

(and because you just may have your account emptied when you are online - people have, you know)