The day I turned my pager in to the company I rented from, I literally danced a jig.
Oh how I hated that human "leash"!
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How did people spend their time pre-internet?
- Thread starter MacBH928
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Oh how I hated that human "leash"!
I definitely agree with you.
Most newspapers now are basically op-eds, and I'm not paying to read someone's opinion or propaganda.
Now, another thing. I've read - and remember - that we had to pay for everything, including entertainment, not even pirated stuff was free back then; nowadays we get so much "bundled" content for the fees we pay, here's my question: has this easiness, this comfort in accessing entertainment lowered the quality of entertainment?
I mean, before people had to buy music (LPs, music cassettes, CDs), we had to buy movies (either theaters or VHS), we had to buy books, and we mostly had to get our behinds up from our chairs, go out and look for what we wanted to buy (we did have mail order shops though); today we can get everything immediately for free if we wanted (piracy) or we can rent tons of content for a small fee (streaming), so content purveyors (streaming services, TV networks) need to fill that space and they will also push lower quality content, whereas before, it was almost a "survival of the fittest", only the better content was able to draw money.
Am I making any sense or I'm just getting old?
Anyway, I'm not missing having to visit several libraries to find the book I needed or wanted, having easy access to knowledge is blissful. And I owe the Internet a large chunk of my foreign languages knowledge, thanks to the way Windows Media Player and Yahoo Directory indexed thousands of radio stations that I used to listen to for hours each day for years, and chat rooms, especially MSN chat rooms, AIM and Yahoo Messenger, allowed me to talk and write with native speakers, those technologies replaced the study travel I couldn't afford.
I got a pager once. I was going to get my own cell phone, but the pager was less expensive. I knew nothing back then.
At the time I was working for UPS (handling bulk packages inside a hub) and got laughed at (good-naturedly) by the guys I worked with.
I started thinking about it and realizing what they were for and took it back a day or two later. At the time, due to my schedule and the nature of my job I was reachable by phone only in dire emergency, so a pager wouldn't have made any difference. And outside work, payphones were still everywhere. No idea why I thought a pager would help me.
Eventually we (my wife and I) ended up with actual cellphones in 1999. These were compact phones compared to a few years earlier when I got that pager, but not something I'd want to have strapped to a belt when hauling around over-70lb packages at work.
I resisted getting a mobile phone for a while until Mrs AFB got pregnant. Then I decided it made sense to be able to get hold of each other easier.
The greatest thing pre-Internet was the lack of social media. If you wanted to meet new people you had to get out of the house. If you wanted to stay in touch with people you knew you either did so "live" (in person or over the phone), or else you had to write a letter.
Second best is the lack of easy access to music, movies, and television. When you can't stream anything and everything on demand - when it takes time and effort (e.g. "appointment TV") - content was somehow more meaningful.
Several things I don't miss from those days:
Second best is the lack of easy access to music, movies, and television. When you can't stream anything and everything on demand - when it takes time and effort (e.g. "appointment TV") - content was somehow more meaningful.
Several things I don't miss from those days:
- Lacking advance notice of problems when traveling - you either called the airline out of paranoia or you found out when you got to the airport
- Relying on the TV and radio for weather, traffic, etc. and having that info apply across a broad area (no such thing as "hyper local")
- Paper tickets for travel, concerts, etc.
- Having to call for directions when going someplace new
- When meeting up with friends and they were running late, not knowing when they'd show up
- Being able to only have as much music on the go as I could carry
I'm not on any social media proper, so still keep in touch via phone as it's much more personal.
Not sure I agree on the music thing. I love being able to listen to any music on Apple music. I don't miss tapes. The quality was not great. Especially after they have been in the car for a year or two!
When my wife and I quit UPS in 1999 we had a combined payout of our retirement that amounted to around $10k. That enabled us to move from Southern California to Phoenix, AZ as well as some other things. One of those other things was cellphones.
I have never resisted technology, but technology has always looked at my budget and fallen over laughing hysterically. I've always had to come back when tech was old enough it could no longer dodge my budget.
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If by social media you are strictly meaning sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc as well as forums then yes.
But I was a heavy BBS user. Being able to 'chat' with SysOps that were several states away was always cool. Posting and leaving messages was also part of the fun. I've always counted that as 'social media'.
Behold , mega reply. Please refrain from reading it all and just read the part you were mentioned in.
Most people here remember it form their child stage, but I was looking more into an adult life style. I guess its hard to find someone who was an adult in the 70s-80s or prior online!
@mollyc
To a certain extent it was. Remember this.
-There were no cellphones . No google maps, if you wanted to a call a place you didn't have their number. You actually had to memorise the number or write it down, it didn't have contacts storage. If you wanted to look up a service or a store you could not, no google search. TV AFAIK was not on 24hrs and channels were few. No online orders or search online to buy something.
@maflynn
People mistook my statement. I said if you **were lonely** prior to the internet it was worse. At least now days you can go online and download a ton of entertainment and interact with people all day long on any website. I can't imagine what would someone do if he was lonely in the 60s.
Then again, people back then due to not having internet were much more social. I can't say, but I imagine people were less lonely back then due to that fact. yes being a kid was better.
@Scepticalscribe
"Now, while the internet can be an incredible source of amazing information, - the expectation that one should be contactable 24/7 is something that I, personally, dislike (yes, I suffer it, endure it, barely tolerate it, at times, in a professional context, but I loathe it)."
Not only that, but back in mid 90s people thought that access to multimedia will make people more knowledgable. While it is true,, the unlimited all access information had side effects like people have less concentration and affected their brain nervous system. Everyone is so hyper, fast, and want the next thing now. Instead of being more educated, they are overburden of streams of info and entertainment.
"Personally, I think that it is something we would do well to try to regain, waiting and having others wait. As I observed earlier in this thread, people had a different (and I would argue, better, in some ways) relationship to time.
In my own case, increasingly, these days, when heading out, I leave my phone at home, which means that I cannot be reached, until after my return, which is sheer bliss."
Indeed, you can recreate it by dropping the smartphone out. Conversely , smartphones can be a life saver in dire situations and emergencies so you just might want to keep it on hand.
@Falhófnir
You are right about internet being n pocket but it kind of had steps.
1-Cellphones in pockets had an effect
2-internet on desktop with limited time and multimedia consumption
3-Internet in cellphone, instant access+high speed for everything
totally changed society. Going out seeing how everyone is staring at a small screen, one would have hard time to imagine how it was before that small device was invented. I find myself reaching for my phone even if I have nothing to do with it.
@rm5
"Because it just seems like it was less hectic and stressful to live back then. I mean I have no idea if this is true, but...
I watch videos and documentaries from or about that era, and every time, I wish I could have lived back then. I mean of course it wasn't perfect, but anyway, you get my point. It seems like life was much more simple, too."
you are correct. Good news is that you can recreate it. Just go hiking, some place far outdoors, or just completely cut off the internet. You will get similar experience.
@Herdfan
"I still wonder how we were able to make plans with with 8+ people and no cell phones, texts or emails.
I college every year we planned a ski trip over Christmas break with people from at least 3 different colleges, leaving messages on answering machines at both their home and dorm and then getting payment without Paypal or Venmo.
Not sure how we did it."
I believe because people **wanted** to go out so they made effort. Today people couldn't care less, they will say I will think about it while watching a stream of Netflix series and texting on social media.
@Apple fanboy
'Sometimes you’d arrange stuff, but often you’d just turn up at the same place after school and hang out. '
This is so right. Instead of going on instagram or some site, people had places for hanging out. you just go there and see who is there right now to hang with. Seeing people was very often. This kind of thing disappeared and now it would be years before I could bump into someone I know that I used to see every other day or so.
@eyoungren
What RPGs did you play in 1983? The text stuff and the dungeon crawlers were too primitive to be fun, at least for me. Maybe at that time it was something amazing.
"I love the fact that the world is at my finger-tips, as well; when I was a student and post grad, if you wished to research, you spent days, weeks, years (as I did) in libraries, or archives, and I loved that. You had to travel - plan ahead - to spend time with the material that you wished to consult, or study, and the libraries and archives had hours when they were open, and hours when they were closed."
There is something important to note. While its much easier to access information especially in multimedia format, the amount and quality of info makes learning harder and the fast access makes it harder to keep the info in your mind. Doing it the old way, I find people were much more educated in their field of speciality as their sources were always of quality content and doing it manually made it retainable.
Things that took days or weeks can be done in a day, and the world transformed so quickly, but with that fast transformation we also got a more hectic and stressful life.
"I get my best work done 'feeding off' the energy that is life happening around me. But I do hate interruptions, which is why I simply just ignore my tech devices. For me, knowing, but choosing whether I will respond or not allows me to remain connected but distant."
I think the problem with most people is not the internet but to use the internet "responsibly" which is something you seem to be able to do. For most people they seem to be addicted like alcoholics are addicted to alcohol. Hence why we say we should disconnect more often.
Internet is a tool, we should not abuse ourselves using it.
"When I was a child, my mother had a strict rule (which I subsequently followed) that no TV was allowed in the kitchen, - she refused to have one installed in the kitchen - and nobody was allowed to leave the table to watch TV, they had to first finish their meal, and then politely excuse themselves if they wished to watch TV in the living room; dinner was family time, a space for exchanging news and discussing stuff, (books, politics, sport, school, work, music, food, travel, history, etc) and for thrashing things out.
"
Thats another thing people forget. There was 1 screen in the house. Now its not too weird for someone to have a tv, a phone, and a laptop just in their bedroom. This also meant only 1 show was on and every one watched together (more social) than everyone in his solitude watching his own thing. It had a more social aspect to it but it solves the problem of not being forced to watching something you do not want!
@laptech
What you say is true about life shutting down at night. I think that made everyone much calmer and relaxed that the 24hour action days. Being a night owl myself, I wonder how I would like that. It will either fix my sleeping habits or make me go insane
"We had none of this pre-internet because the only information flows we had was wat was written in the tabloid papers and what we saw on news broadcasts on the TV. "
To be fair, it was much easier to "brainwash" people with the news back then. Now you can always have access to the "other point of view".
"Which brings me to another point, the quality of journalism has dropped immensely since pre-internet because back then journalists/reports had to put a lot of effort and time into find good quality news. They had to go out and find the news. Now with the internet all they have to do is sit at home or in their office and wait for the news to come to them (Twitter, Facebook,Tiktok and Instagram) and it's not good quality news either."
They have ChatGPT now writing articles for them :**D
@entropyfl
" So when we met up at the bar it was to catch up where as now I don't think people have anything to say to each other because they've been following them all week on social media and don't have anything new to talk about. "
Correct
@trebor53c
"that was something very new and it was actually quality TV not the mostly trash you find on all these stations these days."
Indeed, today there are a billion shows but they are all lacking in taste even though they are high production. Its just a lot of the same thing. To be fair, there was a lot of junk in the 80s and 90s too like low budget films and cash grab sitcoms and there are still good quality shows today.
I never heard of shortwave radio before.
@Mousse
" We only had a only 5 channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and Fox), unlike the hundreds of OTA channels and streaming channels we have today."
I have a hard time believe anyone is watching those sea of channels.
@padams35
"Oh, and adults who needed to be contacted 24/7 had pagers."
I heard they still use those in hospitals to page doctors for some reason.
@fanboy-ish
"Now, another thing. I've read - and remember - that we had to pay for everything, including entertainment, not even pirated stuff was free back then; nowadays we get so much "bundled" content for the fees we pay, here's my question: has this easiness, this comfort in accessing entertainment lowered the quality of entertainment?"
The amount of entertainment makes your attention dispersed causing you to appreciate it less. Its like going to a restaurant and seeing a huge booklet of a menu.
Most people here remember it form their child stage, but I was looking more into an adult life style. I guess its hard to find someone who was an adult in the 70s-80s or prior online!
@mollyc
To a certain extent it was. Remember this.
-There were no cellphones . No google maps, if you wanted to a call a place you didn't have their number. You actually had to memorise the number or write it down, it didn't have contacts storage. If you wanted to look up a service or a store you could not, no google search. TV AFAIK was not on 24hrs and channels were few. No online orders or search online to buy something.
@maflynn
People mistook my statement. I said if you **were lonely** prior to the internet it was worse. At least now days you can go online and download a ton of entertainment and interact with people all day long on any website. I can't imagine what would someone do if he was lonely in the 60s.
Then again, people back then due to not having internet were much more social. I can't say, but I imagine people were less lonely back then due to that fact. yes being a kid was better.
@Scepticalscribe
"Now, while the internet can be an incredible source of amazing information, - the expectation that one should be contactable 24/7 is something that I, personally, dislike (yes, I suffer it, endure it, barely tolerate it, at times, in a professional context, but I loathe it)."
Not only that, but back in mid 90s people thought that access to multimedia will make people more knowledgable. While it is true,, the unlimited all access information had side effects like people have less concentration and affected their brain nervous system. Everyone is so hyper, fast, and want the next thing now. Instead of being more educated, they are overburden of streams of info and entertainment.
"Personally, I think that it is something we would do well to try to regain, waiting and having others wait. As I observed earlier in this thread, people had a different (and I would argue, better, in some ways) relationship to time.
In my own case, increasingly, these days, when heading out, I leave my phone at home, which means that I cannot be reached, until after my return, which is sheer bliss."
Indeed, you can recreate it by dropping the smartphone out. Conversely , smartphones can be a life saver in dire situations and emergencies so you just might want to keep it on hand.
@Falhófnir
You are right about internet being n pocket but it kind of had steps.
1-Cellphones in pockets had an effect
2-internet on desktop with limited time and multimedia consumption
3-Internet in cellphone, instant access+high speed for everything
totally changed society. Going out seeing how everyone is staring at a small screen, one would have hard time to imagine how it was before that small device was invented. I find myself reaching for my phone even if I have nothing to do with it.
@rm5
"Because it just seems like it was less hectic and stressful to live back then. I mean I have no idea if this is true, but...
I watch videos and documentaries from or about that era, and every time, I wish I could have lived back then. I mean of course it wasn't perfect, but anyway, you get my point. It seems like life was much more simple, too."
you are correct. Good news is that you can recreate it. Just go hiking, some place far outdoors, or just completely cut off the internet. You will get similar experience.
@Herdfan
"I still wonder how we were able to make plans with with 8+ people and no cell phones, texts or emails.
I college every year we planned a ski trip over Christmas break with people from at least 3 different colleges, leaving messages on answering machines at both their home and dorm and then getting payment without Paypal or Venmo.
Not sure how we did it."
I believe because people **wanted** to go out so they made effort. Today people couldn't care less, they will say I will think about it while watching a stream of Netflix series and texting on social media.
@Apple fanboy
'Sometimes you’d arrange stuff, but often you’d just turn up at the same place after school and hang out. '
This is so right. Instead of going on instagram or some site, people had places for hanging out. you just go there and see who is there right now to hang with. Seeing people was very often. This kind of thing disappeared and now it would be years before I could bump into someone I know that I used to see every other day or so.
@eyoungren
What RPGs did you play in 1983? The text stuff and the dungeon crawlers were too primitive to be fun, at least for me. Maybe at that time it was something amazing.
"I love the fact that the world is at my finger-tips, as well; when I was a student and post grad, if you wished to research, you spent days, weeks, years (as I did) in libraries, or archives, and I loved that. You had to travel - plan ahead - to spend time with the material that you wished to consult, or study, and the libraries and archives had hours when they were open, and hours when they were closed."
There is something important to note. While its much easier to access information especially in multimedia format, the amount and quality of info makes learning harder and the fast access makes it harder to keep the info in your mind. Doing it the old way, I find people were much more educated in their field of speciality as their sources were always of quality content and doing it manually made it retainable.
Things that took days or weeks can be done in a day, and the world transformed so quickly, but with that fast transformation we also got a more hectic and stressful life.
"I get my best work done 'feeding off' the energy that is life happening around me. But I do hate interruptions, which is why I simply just ignore my tech devices. For me, knowing, but choosing whether I will respond or not allows me to remain connected but distant."
I think the problem with most people is not the internet but to use the internet "responsibly" which is something you seem to be able to do. For most people they seem to be addicted like alcoholics are addicted to alcohol. Hence why we say we should disconnect more often.
Internet is a tool, we should not abuse ourselves using it.
"When I was a child, my mother had a strict rule (which I subsequently followed) that no TV was allowed in the kitchen, - she refused to have one installed in the kitchen - and nobody was allowed to leave the table to watch TV, they had to first finish their meal, and then politely excuse themselves if they wished to watch TV in the living room; dinner was family time, a space for exchanging news and discussing stuff, (books, politics, sport, school, work, music, food, travel, history, etc) and for thrashing things out.
"
Thats another thing people forget. There was 1 screen in the house. Now its not too weird for someone to have a tv, a phone, and a laptop just in their bedroom. This also meant only 1 show was on and every one watched together (more social) than everyone in his solitude watching his own thing. It had a more social aspect to it but it solves the problem of not being forced to watching something you do not want!
@laptech
What you say is true about life shutting down at night. I think that made everyone much calmer and relaxed that the 24hour action days. Being a night owl myself, I wonder how I would like that. It will either fix my sleeping habits or make me go insane
"We had none of this pre-internet because the only information flows we had was wat was written in the tabloid papers and what we saw on news broadcasts on the TV. "
To be fair, it was much easier to "brainwash" people with the news back then. Now you can always have access to the "other point of view".
"Which brings me to another point, the quality of journalism has dropped immensely since pre-internet because back then journalists/reports had to put a lot of effort and time into find good quality news. They had to go out and find the news. Now with the internet all they have to do is sit at home or in their office and wait for the news to come to them (Twitter, Facebook,Tiktok and Instagram) and it's not good quality news either."
They have ChatGPT now writing articles for them :**D
@entropyfl
" So when we met up at the bar it was to catch up where as now I don't think people have anything to say to each other because they've been following them all week on social media and don't have anything new to talk about. "
Correct
@trebor53c
"that was something very new and it was actually quality TV not the mostly trash you find on all these stations these days."
Indeed, today there are a billion shows but they are all lacking in taste even though they are high production. Its just a lot of the same thing. To be fair, there was a lot of junk in the 80s and 90s too like low budget films and cash grab sitcoms and there are still good quality shows today.
I never heard of shortwave radio before.
@Mousse
" We only had a only 5 channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and Fox), unlike the hundreds of OTA channels and streaming channels we have today."
I have a hard time believe anyone is watching those sea of channels.
@padams35
"Oh, and adults who needed to be contacted 24/7 had pagers."
I heard they still use those in hospitals to page doctors for some reason.
@fanboy-ish
"Now, another thing. I've read - and remember - that we had to pay for everything, including entertainment, not even pirated stuff was free back then; nowadays we get so much "bundled" content for the fees we pay, here's my question: has this easiness, this comfort in accessing entertainment lowered the quality of entertainment?"
The amount of entertainment makes your attention dispersed causing you to appreciate it less. Its like going to a restaurant and seeing a huge booklet of a menu.
Yeah, I try to do this quite often, and I love it every time... it helps to relieve stress, too.
How long did it take you to write that post by the way 🤣
I read a lot people complaining they need to leave their smartphone at home to disconnect. I never do that.
But the email address I get on my phone only gets used for a handful of people. Maybe 4-5. So no emails from Amazon or whatever.
Same with my mobile number. If I receive 1-2 calls a month I’d be surprised.
No FB or Twitter accounts so no other pings.
I don’t have notifications on for 99% of apps. If I want to read the news headlines I open the app. Not it telling me there is some breaking story (I almost certainly don’t care about).
It’s not the devices, it’s how we use them. Make sure you are in control not the device controlling you.
But the email address I get on my phone only gets used for a handful of people. Maybe 4-5. So no emails from Amazon or whatever.
Same with my mobile number. If I receive 1-2 calls a month I’d be surprised.
No FB or Twitter accounts so no other pings.
I don’t have notifications on for 99% of apps. If I want to read the news headlines I open the app. Not it telling me there is some breaking story (I almost certainly don’t care about).
It’s not the devices, it’s how we use them. Make sure you are in control not the device controlling you.
I'm just going to respond to this part.
Unfortunately, what I thought would happen here did. That is, you took my reference to RPGs to mean computer roleplaying games. Not your fault, but it was known as something else before that.
Here I drop the words 'Advanced Dungeons & Dragons' to give you context. Now, TSR (the company that made AD&D) did release computer RPGs under the AD&D header. But, no. I am referring to pencil and paper, sit around a table with other people and roll funny-looking dice type RPGs. The same thing that has now suddenly become popular again because of Stranger Things and celebrities playing the game.
In the 80s it was AD&D. In 1986 a friend and I started on Mechwarrior, which is the RPG version of the Battletech boardgame made by FASA. In 1994 I got in with a group of guys playing Rolemaster by ICE (Iron Crown Enterprises). Rolemaster is a far more deadly and realistic version of AD&D and I much prefer it.
But people know what I mean when I say "AD&D". You have to be a fan of Rolemaster already to understand what it is. And there is a historical argument between AD&D fans and Rolemaster fans about which is better. AD&D fans refer to Rolemaster as Chartmaster or Rulesmaster while us Rolemaster fans complain about AD&D hitpoints essentially making your character putty.
I also played ShadowRun (another game by FASA), Spacemaster (Rolemaster in space), Rage, Legend of the Five Rings, and a bunch of other games whose names escape me right now.
But I can do Roelemaster for hours.
I work with a number of people in their 20’s who still play D&D. I haven’t played since I was at school.I'm just going to respond to this part.
Unfortunately, what I thought would happen here did. That is, you took my reference to RPGs to mean computer roleplaying games. Not your fault, but it was known as something else before that.
Here I drop the words 'Advanced Dungeons & Dragons' to give you context. Now, TSR (the company that made AD&D) did release computer RPGs under the AD&D header. But, no. I am referring to pencil and paper, sit around a table with other people and roll funny-looking dice type RPGs. The same thing that has now suddenly become popular again because of Stranger Things and celebrities playing the game.
In the 80s it was AD&D. In 1986 a friend and I started on Mechwarrior, which is the RPG version of the Battletech boardgame made by FASA. In 1994 I got in with a group of guys playing Rolemaster by ICE (Iron Crown Enterprises). Rolemaster is a far more deadly and realistic version of AD&D and I much prefer it.
But people know what I mean when I say "AD&D". You have to be a fan of Rolemaster already to understand what it is. And there is a historical argument between AD&D fans and Rolemaster fans about which is better. AD&D fans refer to Rolemaster as Chartmaster or Rulesmaster while us Rolemaster fans complain about AD&D hitpoints essentially making your character putty.
I also played ShadowRun (another game by FASA), Spacemaster (Rolemaster in space), Rage, Legend of the Five Rings, and a bunch of other games whose names escape me right now.
But I can do Roelemaster for hours.
The last time I played seriously was around 10-12 years ago. One night at an acquaintance's house with a system I was unfamiliar with and it took the DM almost all night to actually get ready.
Most of my experience is 2nd Edition. My son tried his hand at 5th edition, but had a vindictive DM who was there simply to kill characters. I had the same introduction to the game and it took me a few years to realize how horrible that DM was. Bad introduction for my son.
I had an addiction to RPGs in my teens into my mid-30s until I learned to balance work/home life. Fortunately, my wife has always been understanding and has never demanded I give up RPGs.
Hah! +1 more gooder for Palladium.I'm just going to respond to this part.
Unfortunately, what I thought would happen here did. That is, you took my reference to RPGs to mean computer roleplaying games. Not your fault, but it was known as something else before that.
But I can do Roelemaster for hours.
I remember Boot Hill and Gamma World.
Ooh, yeah. Palladium was mentioned a few times but I never played it. I do have the Robotech RPG that Palladium put out, but found that hard to get in to.
Twilight 2000, which I have, but played very little. Top Secret was fun and then there's Star Frontiers which I played a few times as well. Both TSR.
Ohhh, Call of Cthulu and Paranoia. Both of those were fun too.
We also did Traveller back in the early '80s. I really liked the mechanics of Palladium as compared to DnD for magic, advancement, etc. It was also a pain trying to keep up with all the changes from Dragon Magazine, although I'd love to find the endings to the comics.
Robotech was great until Southern Cross where MDC and SDC didn't really mesh. I wanted to like TMNT, but preferred Gamma World. We did some cross-overs with Palladium that just aren't possible with some the other systems.
I never tried the Steve Jackson games back then(GURPS), but Munchkin can be amusing.