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.

Reading the recent posts on academic stuff. Do students still have 'short term loans'? I must ask StudentSon. It involved booking out a particularly rare book (usually there'd be only a few copies for one specific course/essay) one evening and it had to be back next day by, say, 10AM or you faced a mega-fine. .You'd spend all night making notes on A4 paper. Those poor rain forests. It was exhausting. And the time spent reading indexes on journals to see if there was a relevant article contained within. And writing more notes (those rain forests again) to save time later, for next essay/project. It was great fun and interesting if you weren't running at the coo's tail like I often was.

basket I finished a year ago but never had that sort of loan system. We literally had to sit there with it if we wanted it. I was lucky because I downloaded most of the books I needed.

I think having to read things would benefit most people. It would weed people out because people on my college course literally just copied from websites.

I was thinking all this today/yesterday as the 30th would have been my dad's 85th. He WAS using cash machines before he died (but had his PIN written down in code!!) but I don't think my mum did. I remember in the 60s/early70s going with my mum to the bank - she'd go to the same branch (She didn't have choice), on the same day each week, get out a certain amount and that would be the amount she used over the next week for groceries, etc. And she'd pay any outstanding bills over the counter too.

Belle, I think you are right. I notice a difference in our sons' ways of seeking info and DH and me. I sometimes have to remind myself I have the interweb. I must sleep now - that's something that hasn't been 'modernised' out .

If only we could plug ourselves in for a quick 'charge'

I was told I had a chronic disease in the early nineties. I took a bus to the city reference library to find a book on it, which gave me the address of the patient support group. I wrote to them and they replied with a form and request for money I didn't have as a teenager. I got two A3 news sheets a year with medical advances and access to a local support group.

i officially feel very old. as i am in my early 40's, i had kids young and we didn't have the internet.

when i did a degree - i went to libraries and actually read real books from beginning to end. after the first lecture of the year in any module - the whole class literally - and i really mean LITERALLY raced to the library to get out books - as there wasn't enough copies for everyone.

i'm now doing a MSc and wonder how the fuck i managed without the internet

No telephone or. Television until I was about 12. Listened to radio, wrote and received letters. Paid bills in Gas or electricity show rooms. Read loads of books and visited cinema twice a week where we also saw the news. We also collected love letters. Do youngsters print off their love letters received by e mail.? When I studied had to get information from libraries. Had to type essays, using plenty of tipex to delete errors. No supermarkets so lined up in grocery stores while shopkeeper collected items. We talked to each other, played games outside and walked or took buses as we didn't have a car. No fridge in early years but the worst thing was Bronco toilet paper which was shiny and stiff. All you could get or else it was newspaper! Oh! and we really did believe that the Government told us the truth and felt so sorry for those poor Russians!

I remember going on a school trip to a local university to go on the Internet. I think technology has meant more waiting round as people don't feel the need to be on time anymore. How did people manage without videos? Seeing a film at the cinema and not being able to see it again for years.

Just thought, couldn't. Get into debt as no one lent money unless you got hire purchase on furniture etc for which you had to have a guarantor. Also went to the launderette or before that the bag wash. On a Sunday we ate breakfast. At about one o clock we had a roast dinner and good puddings. tea time was at around five with salad, ham, cake etc. Then bread soaked in sugary milk before bedtime and we were not overweight!

I found when I studied for my degree just a few years ago, we would be constantly in the library as the books were needed for not just referencing, but for the actual information we needed as my discipline just isn't readily available on the internet. At one point I had 26 massive doorstopper textbooks in the boot of my car but on the other hand, internet access made my uni life so much easier with admin such as essay submission and the like. I think I have a happy medium of doing things without needing internet access but then also being a little chained to my wifi as well!

I remember when the only nuisance calls you used to get was a pervert heavy breathing down the line or a giggling teenager saying somehing silly to impress their listening mates.

Now we get a few nuisance calls a day, and it has come from people putting their details into the Internet. Those boxes that you tick on comparison websites sayig you don't want your information shared are useless. About a week after I've ever used one I start getting calls from random companies related to whatever thing I did the search on.

Telephone Preference Service is a joke. It worked ok before use of the Internet really took off. Last week I had a nuisance call from some company trying to flog me a device to stop nuisance calls.

Custardo, my students now just read the odd page of books on the 'look inside' function on Amazon. However they do read more journal articles now.

When my mum first got email (with strict instructions not to open any attachments she hadn't asked for, so still phones everyone to check), she asked me to send her some of those amusing stories and jokes people get by email.

So I did.
She replied that all of them were ones that were old in the 1950s when she'd seen them on faded Xeroxes on actual bulletin boards at university...

Not such a change really, though I was limited by jokes that were clean that she'd actually get!

Cherrypi - How did people manage without videos?

How far back are you thinking that was? Every area had video rental libraries (shops) before Blockbuster and other chains grew in popularity.

(As far as I'm concerned, VCRs were pretty popular from the end of the 70s, with Betamax and VHS competing for dominance, and V2000 came along in the early 80s, where the tapes could be turned over like a cassette, and gave 8 hours capacity.)

If the Internet has sped up our work rate several times, then why are we not all richer by the equivalent amount?

I like this article. It made me think that many pre-industrial inventions had great impacts on economy, but in the last few decades there have been few that have been economically revolutionary - their prime benefits have been social and recreational.

Families were bigger then too Kim. I think everyone made their own entertainment.

I dunno about value of online advice. > Half the advice you get is flexible/experimental & at least half the rest is very demoralising or plain wrong.

Something I discovered during recent visit to the USA is that delivery costs are still very high there, so old-fashioned phone around local stores to find an item & then go buy it is still the way to shop. And travel distances so far that people don't meet up as often as they would here. Online banking not permeated as much as it has here, too, etc.

Computing and the internet have also been very much " make work"..... you now need an IT department, and email system and an intranet as well as a host of security services, backup services, redundant systems there just in case something happens, back up power supplies etc etc etc, just to keep a large business going 24/7 nowadays.... remember when companies shut for the weekend?

You need the staff to keep these things going, you need to be trained in using the IT and in internet policy and security - you have to have people responsible for WRITING company internet and email policy and for policing it too.....

Prices for the simplest things rise so much because of the over inflated staff and IT budget, so I'm not sure there has been that much of a huge benefit outside the "recreational" use....

Growing up my grandparents lived 7 hours drive away (and they didn't have a car) so they came and stayed with us once a year and we stayed with them once a year. I don't remember speaking to them on the phone but I suppose my parents did.

My DD's grandparents live at the other end of the country but she has seen them on Skype at least once a fortnight. I know she see's them as a regular fixture in her life and even at the age of 2 she would recognise them and run to them when we meet them at the airport. They also see regular photos of her which we take on our phones and upload directly to the Internet. I know my PIL are very grateful for the Internet and feel they know DD so much better than they would have done if they only saw her a few times a year. After all 4 year olds aren't budding conversationalists on the phone!

We had phones, you know. And people TALKED to each other. And neighbours helped each other out and minded each others children and took in washing when it rained. And we had libraries. And doctors who knew kids from birth to marriage. And when we went into town (on the bus) we paid our bills at the appropriate office. And we had things called Standing Orders from the Bank to pay for things. And we all sat out of a beautiful evening and watched our kids play while we gossiped and laughed.

That's how we managed.

Oh! StarGazey how will I stand the nostalgia, Summer parties that spilled out into the garden, Walks in bluebell woods, meeting friends after school . . .

I love the internet. However children's speech and language scores on entering school have gone down in the last 10 years. The only reason we can think of is that we all talk on screen more than we do off and our children are not being spoken to in the same way.