Pre internet times 🛜

Do you remember life before the internet?

I feel very fortunate to be able to say that, yes, I do very much remember life before the internet. I remember the first time I was exposed to the internet. I was 15 or 16 years old and in school we had weekly computer lessons. We were taught about the internet and how to type in a web address to search for a specific topic. Typing in www. for the first time was very surreal and I couldn’t believe we could look up anything at all on the World Wide Web and find information on that subject . It wasn’t until a year or 2 later that we had dial up internet installed in our family home. We would hear the internet dialling up every time someone wanted to go online and you would have to ensure no one else at home was using the phone. The amount of times I heard my parents say “get off the phone” when they were trying to connect to the internet!

What do I remember before the internet?

– Having to use a map and asking people for directions if I needed to go somewhere. There was no google maps in my growing up.

– Playing outdoors until the sun went down.

– Using pay phones to contact your friends or family when you were out and to make arrangements about where and when to meet up.

– Reading all the time. I was obsessed with books growing up, not so much anymore sadly.

– Visiting the local library, a lot!

– Having to visit a travel agent to book a holiday. Hard to believe as it is so convenient now to just book a quick flight online.

– Looking at cook books for cooking inspiration.

– Attending the bank in person to lodge money with my lodgement book.

– Making photo albums with real photos and in real albums.

– Writing to pen pals from countries near and far.

– Using a typewriter, this was such a novelty for me to type and then I progressed to the next level…

– My Commodore 64. My first computer where you could paint, play games and type in different fonts, even before the internet had entered my life.

Ok that’s my lot for tonight. That’s plenty but I’m sure there are many more things to remember. How about you? Do you remember life before the internet? It’s quite sad that the new generations will not know life before the internet.

Wayne ✌🏽