How did individuals manage before the internet.

Butters1979 · 28-11-2016 1:19pm

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.

pilly · 28-11-2016 1:19pm

o1s1n wrote: »

That awkward moment where you rang your girlfriend's house and her mam or dad answered the phone :eek:

My dad used to go mad if a fella rang the house.

28-11-2016 1:30pm

Riddle101 wrote: »

Well before I got the internet, Encarta was my main source of information. If I had a school project to do, i'd use that for my research source.

Encyclopedia Britannica. The set with aardvark as the first word...think it was from the 50s so a bit outdated by the 70s and 80s.

diomed · 28-11-2016 1:32pm

Older people were the internet.
You listened to them.

kopite386 · 28-11-2016 1:38pm

o1s1n wrote: »

That awkward moment where you rang your girlfriend's house and her mam or dad answered the phone :eek:

pilly wrote: »

My dad used to go mad if a fella rang the house.

Am I only the one picturing the Girls Just Want to Have Fun - video right now haha with the dad going mad when the phone rang even though it was just girls on the other end :pac:

Butters1979 · 28-11-2016 1:40pm

diomed wrote: »

Older people were the internet.
You listened to them.

No they weren't and no we didn't

2ygb4cmqetsjhx · 28-11-2016 1:45pm

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.

gandalf · 28-11-2016 1:48pm

It was horrible, we actually had to talk to each other!!

mariaalice · 28-11-2016 1:54pm

Nobody has really answered the question does having to put more effort that looking it up on the internet contribute to resilience and maturity. There was a thread on AH a while ago where someone asked how do you play the lotto!

diomed · 28-11-2016 1:59pm

Charlotte Ancient Wastebasket wrote: »

I actually think the internet is making people become stupider.
People used to read more books

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.

Badly Drunk Boy · 28-11-2016 2:04pm

I was talking to a lad in work who said that he wanted to be a Garda when he left school (around 1998, I think) but didn't know how to go about it because he lived in a small village, and nowadays you'd just get a form online. I told him that he mustn't have tried too hard. Even going to your local Garda station might have worked.

DivingDuck · 28-11-2016 2:33pm

diomed wrote: »

Older people were the internet.
You listened to them.

If by "older people" you mean "the kids in the year above", then sure.

At least these days kids can get their misinformation from educated people with a deliberate agenda and not just whatever someone a year or two older managed to scrape together from listening at keyholes!

Estrellita · 28-11-2016 2:34pm

Butters1979 wrote: »

No they weren't and no we didn't

Speak for yourself. The advice from my parents and their parents time has been invaluable to me. I'd trust someone that has seen a bit of life before I'd trust a Google search, on just about any topic.

Butters1979 · 28-11-2016 2:46pm

Estrellita wrote: »

Speak for yourself. The advice from my parents and their parents time has been invaluable to me. I'd trust someone that has seen a bit of life before I'd trust a Google search, on just about any topic.

What if your parents wrote some advice online, would you trust it if a google search led you there?

I agree asking people you know and trust is a good idea but there's nothing wrong with using more than one source to find your information. Although the internet can have a lot of misinformation it gives us access to advice and ideas from some extremely smart and experienced people. Finding this and filtering out the bull*hit is the resourcefulness you need nowadays. Dismissing the resource of the internet because the first thing to come up in google isn't great is silly.

jimgoose · 28-11-2016 2:50pm

Butters1979 wrote: »

What if your parents wrote some advice online, would you trust it if a google search led you there?

I agree asking people you know and trust is a good idea but there's nothing wrong with using more than one source to find your information. Although the internet can have a lot of misinformation it gives us access to advice and ideas from some extremely smart and experienced people. Finding this and filtering out the bull*hit is the resourcefulness you need nowadays. Dismissing the resource of the internet because the first thing to come up in google isn't great is silly.

I think the thing is, in the early days of the Internet/UUCP back in the early- to mid-90s you mainly had a small clique of techy-geek/enthusiast types writing articles and posting to it. Nowadays, every loo-lah is at it. :pac:

Badly Drunk Boy · 28-11-2016 2:51pm

osarusan wrote: »

I remember creating an email account but being the only one in my group that had one, so had nobody to send an email to.

I remember getting my first 2 e-mail accounts when I started university in 1991. Since I had new classmates in the same situation, it meant I had people to e-mail if I wanted. (I had about 3 friends...) Newsgroup were the big thing back then. My most visited ones back then would have been...
rec.music.industrial
alt.tv.northern-exp
rec.sports.soccer
...and stuff like that.

mariaalice wrote: »

Nobody has really answered the question does having to put more effort that looking it up on the internet contribute to resilience and maturity. There was a thread on AH a while ago where someone asked how do you play the lotto!

I don't know if it contributes to resilience and maturity (or why it should) but as has already been said, it made people more resourceful than they are today, and you probably appreciated stuff more.

pilly · 28-11-2016 2:54pm

mariaalice wrote: »

Nobody has really answered the question does having to put more effort that looking it up on the internet contribute to resilience and maturity. There was a thread on AH a while ago where someone asked how do you play the lotto!

I kind of did answer it by saying yes you did have to learn by your mistakes so I suppose that made you mature quicker. Did it contribute to resilience? I don't really know. I think people maybe have to be a bit more resilient nowadays to put up with some of the abuse you get online.

jimgoose · 28-11-2016 3:02pm

Badly Drunk Boy wrote: »

...Newsgroup were the big thing back then. My most visited ones back then would have been...
rec.music.industrial
alt.tv.northern-exp
rec.sports.soccer...

Ah yes, good old Usenet. Kibo, Flatfish, alt.sysadmin.recovery, Dave Tholen, and a cast of thousands. That takes me way back! :pac:

Butters1979 · 28-11-2016 3:07pm

jimgoose wrote: »

I think the thing is, in the early days of the Internet/UUCP back in the early- to mid-90s you mainly had a small clique of techy-geek/enthusiast types writing articles and posting to it. Nowadays, every loo-lah is at it. :pac:

Exactly, sure just look at my post history.

The skill nowadays is finding the useful stuff amongst all the crap. It's a bit like prospecting for gold.

jimgoose · 28-11-2016 3:09pm

Butters1979 wrote: »

Exactly, sure just look at my post history.

The skill nowadays is finding the useful stuff amongst all the crap. It's a bit like prospecting for gold.

You could argue that the proliferation of the Web and the loo-lahs thereon has resulted in t'young folk developing more sophisticated analytical and data-sifting/cross-referencing skills than ever.

Estrellita · 28-11-2016 3:30pm

Butters1979 wrote: »

What if your parents wrote some advice online, would you trust it if a google search led you there?

I'm not being dismissive when I say this, but I cant picture a scenario where they would. My Mother is no longer with us, and my Father is terminally ill. However, both of them lived their lives fairly internet free. My brother might have put free messaging on my Dad's phone, and I taught my mum to be able to do some of her banking online, but that was genuinely the extent of their abilities.

But in terms of what you are asking, advice my parents and their parents would have given over the years I would have trusted. What I read online I would absolutely take with a pinch of salt. If my parents had been writing advice online, well why would a stranger trust them?

I agree asking people you know and trust is a good idea but there's nothing wrong with using more than one source to find your information. Although the internet can have a lot of misinformation it gives us access to advice and ideas from some extremely smart and experienced people. Finding this and filtering out the bull*hit is the resourcefulness you need nowadays. Dismissing the resource of the internet because the first thing to come up in google isn't great is silly.

Well firstly I'm not dismissing the internet. But as you said, finding the truth and filtering the bullsh*t out is nessesary with the internet. But it wasn't necessary with my parents or theirs.

I do find the internet useful, but quite frankly previous generations got along just fine without it, and in a way it made them get up of their a.rses and find out what they wanted to themselves. There was a lot more involved with looking for work for example. Companies used to write adverts in newspapers to source an employee for an existing job. Nowadays, you have as many adverts as you like at the touch of a button, only to find out a chunk of them are agencies advertising jobs that don't exist to get you on their books, then test your desperation with a s.hitty job they can't shift. At least, this is the crap my brother has had to deal with.

If I want to find out cinema viewing times, or an address for some where, I'm quite sure my Google search can be trusted, but in a lot of ways I think pre-internet times were more honest, even if they were harder.

Butters1979 · 28-11-2016 3:37pm

Estrellita wrote: »

I'm not being dismissive when I say this, but I cant picture a scenario where they would. My Mother is no longer with us, and my Father is terminally ill. However, both of them lived their lives fairly internet free. My brother might have put free messaging on my Dad's phone, and I taught my mum to be able to do some of her banking online, but that was genuinely the extent of their abilities.

But in terms of what you are asking, advice my parents and their parents would have given over the years I would have trusted. What I read online I would absolutely take with a pinch of salt. If my parents had been writing advice online, well why would a stranger trust them?

Well firstly I'm not dismissing the internet. But as you said, finding the truth and filtering the bullsh*t out is nessesary with the internet. But it wasn't necessary with my parents or theirs.

I do find the internet useful, but quite frankly previous generations got along just fine without it, and in a way it made them get up of their a.rses and find out what they wanted to themselves. There was a lot more involved with looking for work for example. Companies used to write adverts in newspapers to source an employee for an existing job. Nowadays, you have as many adverts as you like at the touch of a button, only to find out a chunk of them are agencies advertising jobs that don't exist to get you on their books, then test your desperation with a s.hitty job they can't shift. At least, this is the crap my brother has had to deal with.

If I want to find out cinema viewing times, or an address for some where, I'm quite sure my Google search can be trusted, but in a lot of ways I think pre-internet times were more honest, even if they were harder.

I wasn't talking about your parents specifically, more that you can still get good advice and knowledge from online, but yes I completely get what you mean and i think we agree. My parents were not so good for advice, so I tended to go elsewhere.

Grayson · 28-11-2016 3:46pm

The flying mouse wrote: »

You had to actually meet people in person more, You went to the library or bought books to learn & get information, You actually read newspapers for the news and write letters to correspond with family's and friends and of course boyfriends/girlfriends etc, How did we ever mange ?

Deleted User wrote: »

There was also the phone. And people would actually talk. For ages. A chat with the girlfriend was anything from half an hour or longer.

I had a girlfriend who had to go to Limerick for work. There were half hour to hour long conversations every night and letters at least once a week.

I miss writing letters. I have a box with all the letters I received in it.

looksee · 28-11-2016 3:53pm

There used be lots of parish magazine type leaflets, typed on a wax sheet and run off on a Gestetner or similar machine. Or you looked on notice boards, in the local paper, or got (or sent) small slips of paper with meeting times on.

Personal meetings were arranged at the previous meeting, by phone or by letter.

Generally information was more reliable from printed books/ from the library than it is now online. Pretty much anything you read had been produced by someone who was literate so the scrambled grammar and spelling was not as prevalent. There were of course people who struggled with English, but their communications were not offered to the entire world to further confuse everyone else.

If you were away and people were not expecting hourly internet updates of your continued existence they only started worrying about you after a week, rather than a few minutes.

People could cope with more in-depth information than the internet currently provides. I am amazed at the clickbait stuff the BBC is offering as on-line news.

People didn't waste as much time as I have frittered away this morning making banal observations on stuff that doesn't matter.

Maximus Alexander · 28-11-2016 3:59pm

mariaalice wrote: »

Nobody has really answered the question does having to put more effort that looking it up on the internet contribute to resilience and maturity. There was a thread on AH a while ago where someone asked how do you play the lotto!

No, I don't think so. There were always stupid, hopeless people filling the world. It's just that now they all have a direct line to you so you see them everywhere. At least the ones who can figure out how to get onto the internet.

nice_guy80 · 28-11-2016 4:03pm

Ciderswigger wrote: »

Table quizzes were more fun.

thats why certain pubs are used nowadays for quizzes

lack of internet reception!

Capt'n Midnight · 28-11-2016 9:51pm

tayto lover wrote: »

Carrier pidgeon BUT the mods were hawks.

Ping times suck too. http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/
PING 10.0.3.1 (10.0.3.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=6165731.1 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=3211900.8 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=5124922.8 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=6388671.9 ms
9 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 55% packet loss

kopite386 wrote: »

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

Oddly enough this is what led to the Guinness Book of Records.

dub_skav wrote: »

And back in those days you didn't even have a Nigerian Prince to email

The "Spanish Prisoner" scam has been going on since at least the 16th century.

pilly wrote: »

hairyslug wrote: »

Sports scores and news were to be found on aertel.

Forgot about Aertel. :D

And arrivals at the airport too.

Widdershins · 28-11-2016 10:06pm

JupiterKid wrote: »

We managed. Information diffused much more slowly but eventually reached people. I think email and the Internet really sped up the pace of work - people demanding replies/documents instantly - things were done more slowly but with more care. So much about the Internet in incredible - the library of the world at your fingertips. But so much is superficial and all for show - like facebook updates and "selfies" - short attention spans and getting bored in 5 minutes.

We waited more for things and were more patient. And I was 20 when I used the Internet for the first time. I've never really known the work environment before the web - but I do recall when faxes and couriers were an everyday fact of work life!

But I born into the computer age. Brought up in the era of the Personal Computer and computer games. I really can't imagine life without computers.

I think Facebook has affected my attention span. I can't even watch a short Youtube video.

Although we were late about getting the internet in here as we didn't need it at first. Now everything is online.

odyssey06 · 28-11-2016 10:15pm

I remember getting by before the internet - and mobile phones, and internet equipped mobile phones.

Using payphones, carrying a phone card to use in payphones, and committing full phone numbers to memory.
Arranging to meet friends in pub X at time Y, and telling one guy to be there at Y minus 30 minutes as he was always late.
AERTEL, encyclopedias and books in general much more used as a reference.

If it bugged you watching a film where have I seen that guy before, or what song did I just hear... then you just had to let it go.

I started in computer science at a time when the computers on campus were not linked to the world wide web (i.e. no browser) ... only to internal intranet. When I first started using the world wide web, I had no idea that within 10 years so would everybody i.e. not just computer geeks like me.

If I'm travelling somewhere outside of Dublin I'm not familiar with, I rely on my phone - but I still keep an AA roadmap in case of emergencies (like phone dying or network going down).

I'm glad to have lived through the transition to the internet age, but I do get nostalgic watching 80s movies and TV shows, remembering pre-Google days. I like that I have had my feet in both worlds - not just one or the other.

Will today's kids ever really be bored with the distractions of a smartphone always seconds away?
Boredom can spur you to wonderful things!
I think pre-smartphone era you had to make your own fun more, plan ahead more, rely on your own devices and resources more.

I think it's one thing to be have access to internet from a desktop or laptop... because a lot of the time, you weren't connected, so you still had to have a plan B.
But the transition to where everyone is online all the time is even more dramatic.

Rumpy Pumpy · 28-11-2016 10:24pm

Great books. They haven't gone away you know.....

How did individuals manage before the internet.

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