How did individuals manage before the internet.

For Forks Sake

kopite386 wrote: »

You could actually have argument with somebody about whether something was true or not, without somebody googling the answer within 2 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXlyYSNAACM

dr.fuzzenstein

http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/you-merely-adopted-the-internet-bane.jpg

5rtytry56

Before online gaming, the physical arcades were busier. Who looked cool playing in that swaying Afterburner machine, or who looked swish playing in that WEC le mans cabinet.

snickerpuss

pilly wrote: »

The library was probably the "physical" version of the internet I suppose.

The exception being that the books and journals in the library were peer reviewed and contained verifiable information as compared to the Internet. Quite a lot of people seem to accept anything on the internet as fact. It's frightening.

SimonTemplar

I grew up in the 90s so I can just about remember a life before the internet. I remember looking at aertel after school.

Encarta was considered the bible of information but even that had only a tiny fraction of what's now on wikipedia. I do think there is an appeal of a nicely printed encylopedia - not the 26 volumn ones but the heavily illustrated ones that can be found cheaply in bookshops for around 20 euro. It's always more enjoyable to flick through those than randomly browsing wikipedia.

I do a lot of software development and I can't imagine doing so now without all the online resources available especially stackoverflow.

It is amazing how the internet has evolved from an academic sharing tool used by a select few in the 80s to a major e-commerce and social media flatform used by billions.

pilly

odyssey06 wrote: »

and committing full phone numbers to memory.

God I just remembered I used to know 115 phone numbers off by heart, I was known for it! Now I'm lucky if I remember 3 at best.

Don't think smartphones and internet have done a lot for memory techniques.:eek:

suicide_circus

Rather than freeing us it has tied people to work 24/7

Steve F

diomed wrote: »

You can tell by poor spelling that a poster does not read books.
Reading does more than provide ideas and information, it polishes your spelling, grammar, and sentence structure.

I reed louds of boks and my speling is atrocious Go figuur

Sam Kade

LexieOnRale wrote: »

I don't know, I don't really remember a time with no internet.
What was it like?

They were great times, people actually talked to each other and if something bad happened around the other side of the world we wouldn't hear about it.

Sam Kade

Charlotte Ancient Wastebasket wrote: »

I actually think the internet is making people become stupider.

Before you had all information available at your finger tips anytime anywhere you had to actually think for yourself. People used to read more books and be able to connect ideas logically in their heads and form more informed opinions. Now in the internet you just google know the answer and not think anymore about it.

I fully agree :rolleyes:

The internet since 2006 or so has changed life in so many ways, mostly for the worse, in my opinion. Directly and indirectly because of social media, dating apps, universal access to unlimited information, constant exposure to good looking/high status people online, existence of smartphones, social acceptance of being openly vain/self-absorbed/self-promoting/taking selfies etc. life has become, much more than ever before, a viscous, unending, hollow social-status chasing chore where everyone ends up much less happy than they would have been in a simpler time when *nobody* else lived with access to this technology. I hate it.

Remember when "good looking" was a compliment payed to exceptional people; now it is a bog-standard basic requirement for anyone just to feel accepted as acceptable by everyone else, because internet exposure has warped our perspectives .. and somehow everyone *is* becoming better looking due to this social pressure, which shows the effect of this relentless battering people are experiencing everyday unbeknownst to themselves.

andekwarhola

The internet obliterated a lot of what was magical and central about music in your life, as a youth anyway. So much stuff you merely heard about and had to wait ages to actually track down and the stuff you had, you tended to listen to it far more.

Widdershins

Deleted User wrote: »

The internet since 2006 or so has changed life in so many ways, mostly for the worse, in my opinion. Directly and indirectly because of social media, dating apps, universal access to unlimited information, constant exposure to good looking/high status people online, existence of smartphones, social acceptance of being openly vain/self-absorbed/self-promoting/taking selfies etc. life has become, much more than ever before, a viscous, unending, hollow social-status chasing chore where everyone ends up much less happy than they would have been in a simpler time when *nobody* else lived with access to this technology. I hate it.

Remember when "good looking" was a compliment payed to exceptional people; now it is a bog-standard basic requirement for anyone just to feel accepted as acceptable by everyone else, because internet exposure has warped our perspectives .. and somehow everyone *is* becoming better looking due to this social pressure, which shows the effect of this relentless battering people are experiencing everyday unbeknownst to themselves.

Hair extensions and expensive makeup are pushed on us online. Not surprised we look better since we seem to spend too much time on trying to!
Also, people use filters on their photos.

Winterlong

DIY is another thing that is a lot easier now.
Want to know how to properly change out a sink/tap in 1995? Call a plumber and he do it for you. You can watch/learn if you want.

Nowadays- go to Youtube and cross your fingers.

Widdershins

Widdershins wrote: »

Hair extensions and expensive makeup are pushed on us online. Not surprised we look better since we seem to spend too much time on trying to!
Also, people use filters on their photos.

Yeah and girls in particular can take hundreds of photographs from different angles and lighting and then only put the best ones online, warping each others perceptions of how attractive the average person is. Not too long ago, seeing a physique like Ronaldos would be exceptionally rare, even in the media - now you have every tom dick and harry sporting a great physique but getting relatively little advantage from it since it is only a baseline requirement now due to the extremely high standards of nowadays which have their origins in ... the internet being a thing. Life actually is very different to even 15 years ago, in a way which wasn't true for other 15 year time gaps in the past ... and no amount of aristotle etc. quotes about how the "youth of today .. blah, blah blah" or anecdotes about luddites smashing weaving looms or people who gave out about television rotting our brains or overstimulating us (which I'm sure had *some* impact in the past in the same direction as the internet but miniscule in comparison) will stop this being the case, in my overwhelming opinion.

Trent Houseboat

It was really annoying when the know-it-all of the group would make up some ridiculous lie and you knew he was full of sh*t, but you couldn't verify it at the time. They can still be spotted, but they're now saying that the art of conversation has died.

5rtytry56

Trent Houseboat wrote: »

It was really annoying when the know-it-all of the group would make up some ridiculous lie and you knew he was full of sh*t, but you couldn't verify it at the time. They can still be spotted, but they're now saying that the art of conversation has died.

Had the indignation of having someone like that as a project partner in College way back when. Oh such people are still around on the likes of facebook too, alright.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

Butters1979 wrote: »

I 'member before the Internet. I'd spend my Saturday afternoons staring at teletext to get the football scores. If I was out Saturday afternoons then match of the day was genuinely exciting. I 'member when someone scored who was Irish their name came up in green. Nice touch. Technology eh?

Following European leagues was even harder. I used to have to buy world soccer magazine just to check the Spanish league table. Then Eurosport came along and if you stayed up until 1am on a Monday you could watch Eurogaols. Worst sports commentator ever. Fun fact. The commentator from Eurogoals was 'Statto' from Skinner and Baddiel's fantasy football TV show.

Speaking of which, anyone 'member fantasy football before the Internet? You had to post a letter to the newspaper to make a sub. Good times. Good times.

Statto always looked very shifty to me. Never trust a man in a robe! They're in their design predetermined for "accidental" openings and exposings of oneself.

I used to write up my fantasy football team on paper and give it to my dad who would use the phone in his work to ring it in. Remember it being charged at the minute and was a high enough premium rate number.

I remember the first email I ever sent in the late 90's was to a radio station who read out my message and played the song I requested. It really was still a big novelty at that time even.

listermint

Thread is a thinly veiled im older than people therefore i must be smarter based on the context of responses in an internet forum.


What is the premise of this again.... :O

Widdershins

Widdershins wrote: »

Hair extensions and expensive makeup are pushed on us online. Not surprised we look better since we seem to spend too much time on trying to!
Also, people use filters on their photos.

A colleague of mine is slightly, borderline chubby. In todays obesity-crisis Ireland not even noticeable but all her Facebook pictures show a girl a couple of sizes smaller. Turns out she photoshops everything before uploading them.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

stateofflux

ill say this. many people i know dedicate at least 5 hours of their day to posting
cringe nonsense to social media timelines seeking validation and attention. If the internet was not there i would never have known how uncool and insecure they were.

Widdershins

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah and girls in particular can take hundreds of photographs from different angles and lighting and then only put the best ones online, warping each others perceptions of how attractive the average person is. Not too long ago, seeing a physique like Ronaldos would be exceptionally rare, even in the media - now you have every tom dick and harry sporting a great physique but getting relatively little advantage from it since it is only a baseline requirement now due to the extremely high standards of nowadays which have their origins in ... the internet being a thing. Life actually is very different to even 15 years ago, in a way which wasn't true for other 15 year time gaps in the past ... and no amount of aristotle etc. quotes about how the "youth of today .. blah, blah blah" or anecdotes about luddites smashing weaving looms or people who gave out about television rotting our brains or overstimulating us (which I'm sure had *some* impact in the past in the same direction as the internet but miniscule in comparison) will stop this being the case, in my overwhelming opinion.

I agree. And people who come back with those answers probably have not lived without internet so they don't have the benefit of that perspective.

Widdershins

Deleted User wrote: »

A colleague of mine is slightly, borderline chubby. In todays obesity-crisis Ireland not even noticeable but all her Facebook pictures show a girl a couple of sizes smaller. Turns out she photoshops everything before uploading them.

It's kind of sad that she would feel the need, but in a way it reminds me of a girl at school who used to put socks in her bra.

ChippingSodbury

snickerpuss wrote: »

The exception being that the books and journals in the library were peer reviewed and contained verifiable information as compared to the Internet. Quite a lot of people seem to accept anything on the internet as fact. It's frightening.

I remember doing research in early '90s and came across two papers that directly contradicted each other for a comparable experiment: one said the trend was up and the other said the trend was down. One of them was telling porkies. Both were published peer-reviewed papers...

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

stateofflux wrote: »

ill say this. many people i know dedicate at least 5 hours of their day to posting
cringe nonsense to social media timelines seeking validation and attention. If the internet was not there i would never have known how uncool and insecure they were.

I think one point to note here is what and how did people present themselves before the internet?

To take an extreme (but reasonably valid) example, someone like Jimmy Saville could present himself to the public as exactly how he wanted. Same with certain priests who did bad things here in the past. Nowadays there is far more transparency of people, and while people aren't 100% who they portray themselves as online (using filters for photos, soapboxing about homeless people for moral brownie points ect) at least there is more information/data available to make more correct judgements on people.

In my opinion, people pre-internet had a much easier time presenting a narrative about themselves that they choose, which is much less the case for people now.

mariaalice

It an very interesting point how information follows individual around, for example grada vetting would have been much more difficult pre the internet not impossible though, something stupid someone did as a teen can follow them around for life and affect their career and work.

Widdershins

mariaalice wrote: »

It an very interesting point how information follows individual around, for example grada vetting would have been much more difficult pre the internet not impossible though, something stupid someone did as a teen can follow them around for life and affect their career and work.

Is it not only if they are convicted though?

5rtytry56

In Dublin city, in the days before the internet and especially at Christmas, I saw a lot of people of all ages in shops, with mystified looks on their faces shopping for something but not knowing where to go.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

mariaalice wrote: »

It an very interesting point how information follows individual around, for example grada vetting would have been much more difficult pre the internet not impossible though, something stupid someone did as a teen can follow them around for life and affect their career and work.

Widdershins wrote: »

Is it not only if they are convicted though?

Probably as somewhat fringe examples but need to point this out.

Someone with many convictions might not actually show up on Garda vetting at all.

And on the flip side, someone with no convictions can actually show up on Garda vetting.