to miss the world pre internet?

[ArsenicChaseScream]

On balance, it was better, wasn't it?

I love the internet for the fact that I can get to the answer to a question instantly, listen to music and for places like MN and reading other people's opinions.

I don't like that technology in general has overtaken everything. The need to share everything. I agree with what Planet is saying. People don't "enjoy the moment" anymore. Our lives have to be shared with others so we can say, "Look at me, look what I'm doing, look at my life." I think it's mainly smartphones I dislike. (as I type this on my iPhone!) Go to a restaurant and people are on their phones while they wait for their food. They then take pictures of their food to share on social media. They tag themselves at the restaurant so all their FB friends can know where they are. No-one just sits down and eats a fucking meal anymore! I love my phone but it stays in my bag when I'm out. But some of my friends keep it on the table while we're out, constantly check it, tag me in places etc. I can't stand that oversharing aspect of the internet.

And FWIW I do boycott many things including twitter.

I am lamenting our changed society, not my personal internet use.

Op how would you post this question with out the Internet

Oh that's meta Piper

I was having this conversation with my friend last night. I find it quite remarkable that we were the last generation to grow up without the internet.

If we wanted to meet our friends at the weekend, we had to determine a place and time. Then just wait.

I still can remember a load of my childhood friends' telephone numbers and their parents' names.

If we wanted to find out information for a school project, we had to look it up in an encyclopaedia.

I lost contact with a lot of my friends at university when we left due to changed numbers and addresses.

Yes Betty and Martyr I'm sometimes sad about some of the people I lost touch with (moved around a lot) but when I think about it, to never have anonymity, to never move on is quite scary.

I'm not sure, as over 35s we understand really how it is to be part of the internet generation.

One of my teens is a complete social media refusenik. I understand why, but it's an unusual stance and causes its own difficulties.

And the instagramming your meals thing....

Yes to the fact that you can't go back. I could junk my phone and Facebook account and only read physical books, but I can't stop my boss or colleagues being convinced that they have an absolute right to receive an email reply within a couple of hours to any query, including at night and at the weekend, nor can I tell my boss that I just don't do email.

I know quite a few people who are social media refuseniks but they still complain that their private lives are infested by email demands and they have too much work.

I do think my ability to read (and to some extent write) has been negatively affected. I am now completely unable to read a book without stopping to check email/look at the news. I feel constantly anxious and compelled to check my email and the Internet news. I have multiple windows open in every browser and can hardly read an article in one of them without clicking out to another in the middle. I feel like haven't read properly for years - had that really deep pleasurable feeling of absorption in a book, or an activity even.

I remember all those arguments that would go on all night along the lines of the lyrics to a particular song, or who did what when. These days you can just Google it and get the answer instantly.
Also if you needed to verify a particular fact you had to go and find a book and try to find the answer. While doing so you would pick up on all kinds of other interesting information as you read the book for that particular bit you needed. Again, these days toy can just instantly Google.

Having said all that, I do love the Internet - just nothing is mysterious anymore!

You, not toy!

I see some real signs of society getting worse here! (Sarcasm!!!)

www.forbes.com/sites/susanmcpherson/2014/05/27/empowering-women-and-girls-one-hashtag-at-a-time/

mobilemamaalliance.org/

abcnews.go.com/Health/red-cross-map-ebola-zone-fight-outbreak/story?id=24863778

And there were terrorists, paedophiles etc well before the Internet. People just wouldn't have known about them as much! Wasn't there a thread on here a week or so ago about how much worse things were in the 50s and 60s?

Thing is though OP, you're living in the age before

The really sad thing is ive seen people out on dates or out with friends and instead of talking to each other across the table they are absorbed in their phones. Its changed social interaction in that sense.

Arsenic I totally understand what you are saying. We cannot personally opt out. We could choose to use things a little less (I could certainly MN less) but we can't choose not to have our lives influenced by all of these changes. I would miss it now, but yes, I have changed my mind. If we could go back to pre-internet world wide, I would.

Irina I understand that there are positives. I hope I gravitate to them.

I just feel (possibly in a slightly early hours way) that on balance the negatives outweigh them.

I j have a conviction that I cannot shake, that history will see the dawn of the internet as an important, significant, fairly major 'end of innocence'.

You should try and enjoy the world when it's just the internet we've got to worry about.

True. Always true of many things.

We cannot personally opt out.

Exactly Latte

instead of talking to each other across the table they are absorbed in their phones. Its changed social interaction in that sense

And that Darkest

I was only thinking about it this morning. My first urge on waking is to look at my smartphone. Before it existed I lay in bed thinking, being, relaxing. The need for outside stimulation wasn't there. I miss that alone time.
I think the smartphones when socialising is the same thing. Friends not chatting, couples not flirting, kids being ignored in favour of online interaction. I don't think OP is saying that life would be better without the Internet, just remembering when it wasn't there.

I would say there are a lot more positives TBH.

I think that's maybe why I love the internet so much Alley, because I don't like being left with my own disturbing thoughts.

I'll flick from the internet to the telly to my phone to chatting with DH if I must take away one of those things and I can't drown shit out.

Just Wikipedia on its own is an unbelievable phenomenon, think of all the things people would have invented pre-internet with Wiki at their beck and call. Imagine Da Vinci or Newton online connecting shit that hasn't been connected before.

you don't have to participate you know. Set yourself free!

Throw out all the screens for a month and then see how you feel.

Let's conquer the internet one screen at a time

Of course you have to participate bunchofolives do you think the rest of the world is going to say OK Arsenic, Chipping/Latte & others want to get snail mail instead, they want to be able to turn up at a B&B and it not already be booked out 'online', they don't want to be bothered by pesky screens to do their jobs....???

It is hard enough to enforce a 'no internet on holiday' rule. I feel like we are risking our livelihoods each time. DH nearly cracks.

"no we haven't printed our boarding passes..."