How did people spend their time pre-internet?

[Scepticalscribe]

Higher birth rates should give you a hint.

Personally, I would make the argument that the improved position of women in (most) western societies in recent decades - with access to education, and thus, able to enjoy a degree of economic autonomy, plus access to safe, affordable and reliable birth control, have had a far greater impact on birthrates in a society than availability of, or access to, the internet.

 

[MacBH928]

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 🤣

Yes it does.

It took me few days to read every post and reply to it, but if I start a thread I take care to read every person cared to reply to me out of respect. That is unless things get out of hand. I saw threads withs hundreds of pages of replies going back a decade literally.

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.

You are correct but this is the problem, people lose control. Its literally an addiction, just like I mentioned before, its similar to losing control to gambling, videogames, or over eating except people are accepting this form of addiction.

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 didn't know those were refered to as RPGs, I thought they were simply just board games. I recently heard of real world role playing games but I do not know how that works.

I tried to understand D&D but it seemed like it needs a dedicated group of people to play as the game as I heard can go on for weeks and there is much reading to do to be able to play that game and others similar.

 

[Mousse]

Personally, I would make the argument that the improved position of women in (most) western societies in recent decades - with access to education

This resulted in women having higher standards now. Gone are the days where marriage = security. Now women want a man who helps around the house. A man who helps take care of his kids. A man who's not only physically fit, but fiscally fit as well. We didn't have incels back in the day because women had such low standards. We didn't have "I am an alpha" guys back then either because women had to prop up their man's fragile ego.

Sometimes I wonder if I would make the cut today. I'd say I'm on the bubble. The wildcard would be my immaturity.😏 I'd make the cut if I had kids.🤗

 

[eyoungren]

I didn't know those were refered to as RPGs, I thought they were simply just board games. I recently heard of real world role playing games but I do not know how that works.

I tried to understand D&D but it seemed like it needs a dedicated group of people to play as the game as I heard can go on for weeks and there is much reading to do to be able to play that game and others similar.

At it's best, RPGs (in the context we are now speaking in), are challenging but collaborative. You have a DM (Dungeon Master, also known as a GM (Game Master) who presents the plot. The players create characters and act out those characters in response to the plot. Dice are used simply to determine an outcome of actions or situations.

The DM controls all the other characters (monsters, humans, etc) that your player character (PC) interacts with. Those are referred to as NPCs (Non-Player Characters). The plot (story) continues as your character interacts with what the DM presents to you.

The DM is not there to give the PCs everything they want - that would be boring. But neither is the DM there to rack up a body count (kill player characters with impossible situations). That's a passive aggressive ****** DM.

The best DMs have creative and engaging stories for the PCs to engage in. And they listen to what the players want to do. No one is having fun if the DM is presenting a story no one wants to engage with.

And yes, it can be long running. That's the entire point. People invest in their characters and the longer they live (survive) the more you invest in them. RPGs are not boardgames where it's just fun for one night or so. You get your fun because there is a long-running story (hopefully) that involves your character, and in your investment in that character's 'life'.

 

[compwiz1202]

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 🤣

Always harder when it exists though. Like when people say, we didn't have XYZ in my day. But you didn't have it at all to miss. Today even if you never used something, if others have, you can still want it since it exists.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Always harder when it exists though. Like when people say, we didn't have XYZ in my day. But you didn't have it at all to miss. Today even if you never used something, if others have, you can still want it since it exists.

Works both ways. When people talk about FB and Twitter I certainly don’t think I’m missing out by never joining.

 

[compwiz1202]

Works both ways. When people talk about FB and Twitter I certainly don’t think I’m missing out by never joining.

FB is ok. I've been getting better at just paying attention to friends' posts and an occasional article, and don't feed the trolls anymore. Twitter I only use to contact businesses about issues and check statuses of outages.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Always harder when it exists though. Like when people say, we didn't have XYZ in my day. But you didn't have it at all to miss. Today even if you never used something, if others have, you can still want it since it exists.

Not necessarily.

The trick lies in deciding and defining what interests you, and what you may need (or find useful) from the modern world, rather than simply succumbing to what you may want.

And it is also useful to remember - to remind yourself - to set boundaries; just because something exists, doesn't mean that you are compelled to avail of it.

To my mind, the best possible outcome is an intelligent (and entirely personal, and subjective) blend of old and new, a blend that works for you and your life; retain what is relevant from the past, and utilise the best of what the new tech revolutions have to offer.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Works both ways. When people talk about FB and Twitter I certainly don’t think I’m missing out by never joining.

Agree completely re FB.

I've never joined, and do not plan to do so.

Twitter is something I have found useful, but my actual engagement there is quite limited; besides, unfortunately, it is no longer what it was.

 

[rm5]

I've never joined, and do not plan to do so.

Neither do I, but I probably will have to at some point, because all the musicians advertise their gigs/performances on FB.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Neither do I, but I probably will have to at some point, because all the musicians advertise their gigs/performances on FB.

Fair enough, and that makes sense.

For what it is worth, I use Twitter for professional reasons, as well.

 

[KaliYoni]

back in the day because women had such low standards

I think it is less that women had low standards as that societal and cultural norms and expectations made many women feel obligated to make relationship decisions that ended up restricting their educational, career, or personal goals.

 

[mortlocli]

We spent our time much like how we did pre tv..doing stuff for our own entertainment
I'm glad I lived my childhood pre tv and computers. Going to a movie matinee once a week on a Saturday was a big event. The Saturday news paper was a great source of entertainment for my Pa..there were about five or six sections to it so he could spend most of a day reading it - great for a wet day

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I think it is less that women had low standards as that societal and cultural norms and expectations made many women feel obligated to make relationship decisions that ended up restricting their educational, career, or personal goals.

Exactly: And this, in a world, and at a time, when women were limited re educational and economic opportunities, constrained by law and custom, which all served to deny them choice and autonomy.

 

[Lioness~]

Mostly at the gym, and spinning so the sweat sprayed.

Agree completely re FB.

I've never joined, and do not plan to do so.

Twitter is something I have found useful, but my actual engagement there is quite limited; besides, unfortunately, it is no longer what it was.

Agree on those.
FB I almost never used, and tried to delete it totally, but every time I click a Facebook link to watch something, it asks if I want to activate my really old account again. Never!

Twitter was pretty good a long time ago. Today it's crap though.

 

[pdoherty]

Before the internet in the period from 1988-1994 I spent a lot of time on... (drumroll) BBS systems. The "internet" before there really was an internet (other than a few universities and military installations).

 

[MacBH928]

Before the internet in the period from 1988-1994 I spent a lot of time on... (drumroll) on BBS systems. The "internet" before there really was an internet (other than a few universities and military installations).

I consider BBS the internet. Instead of connecting to a "server" you just connected to a guy's computer. The BBS was basically a website. Did it have live chat? Did it charge by time on phone or data transferred?

 

[scubachap]

I'm a member of a few clubs that centre around outdoor activities / sports. Something we've all noticed across the board over the last ten or so years is how much older everyone is who participates. These clubs used to be chock full of adventurous youngsters but just about everyone I meet now is pretty much over 50. It's a big issue and just about every club I'm in makes huge efforts to attract younger people but with very little success. One would have thought that as it's now never been so easy as to find out where to go, how to do things and hook up with experienced people yet the opposite seems to be happening. There's clearly been a very profound social shift in the way people (particularly in the first world) both think and interact with their environment (away from the internet) over the past 15 years or so.

 

[PauloSera]

You make it sound like the Dark Ages.

It might as well be for how much life has changed since. And not for the better. Not in a single way.

 

[onenorth]

Model railroads, Atari, VHS movie rentals, an HP scientific calculator, TRS-80, toys from the Sears Christmas Wish Book catalog, lots of time outdoors with friends, and on the weekends my father would let me use his firm's VAX 11/780, which took up an entire climate controlled room in his office building, to teach myself DCL programming. Acoustic modems to connect remotely. I was done with grad school before the Internet became a useful thing and even then there were no web browsers, only text-based resources and customized GUI-based applications on CD-ROM for shopping and travel planning.

Oh, and CompuServe. I still remember my login ID 73657,705.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I'm a member of a few clubs that centre around outdoor activities / sports. Something we've all noticed across the board over the last ten or so years is how much older everyone is who participates. These clubs used to be chock full of adventurous youngsters but just about everyone I meet now is pretty much over 50. It's a big issue and just about every club I'm in makes huge efforts to attract younger people but with very little success. One would have thought that as it's now never been so easy as to find out where to go, how to do things and hook up with experienced people yet the opposite seems to be happening. There's clearly been a very profound social shift in the way people (particularly in the first world) both think and interact with their environment (away from the internet) over the past 15 years or so.

I suspect that this tendency may have been further accelerated by the experience of the Covid lockdowns; some of my friends (who are in teaching, at either second level or third level) have said to me that part of the (mental) legacy of the Covid lockdowns is that the psychological wellbeing of a surprising number of youngsters is a lot more fragile and brittle than it was, adn that this has been expressed in areas such as a reluctance to engage in outside pursuits.

 

[Apple fanboy]

I suspect that this tendency may have been further accelerated by the experience of the Covid lockdowns; some of my friends (who are in teaching, at either second level or third level) have said to me that part of the (mental) legacy of the Covid lockdowns is that the psychological wellbeing of a surprising number of youngsters is a lot more fragile and brittle than it was, adn that this has been expressed in areas such as a reluctance to engage in outside pursuits.

Why do you think that is. I notice the young people where I work are a lot less resilient than the older ones.
Between sickness, lateness and the many other issues they have I do wonder how things have changed so much.
I think I’ve had no more than 5 sick days since I started work many decades ago. Many seem to have that a year.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Why do you think that is. I notice the young people where I work are a lot less resilient than the older ones.
Between sickness, lateness and the many other issues they have I do wonder how things have changed so much.
I think I’ve had no more than 5 sick days since I started work many decades ago. Many seem to have that a year.

I don't know: I need to give it some thought.

However, anecdotally, - this is something I have been informed about by friends, and former students, who are now teaching; they say that we shall see the effects of this for some time yet.

They tell me - they have reported - that the experience of distance learning, the enclosed and enforced and curtailed domestic environments (and, to be clear, they weren't objecting to the need for health precautions to have been taken with the public good in mind during the pandemic), the lack of social engagement (and perhas, physical activity) at an age when social gatherings with peers and friends matter enormously in the psychological development of a young person - over two years - have all taken a surprising (and quite pronounced) toll on the mental health of some of the young people whom they teach, and that some students have found it very difficult to re-adjust to the setting of a formal classroom once formal, face-to-face classes resumed.

Perhaps you are right about a lack of resilience.

 

[eyoungren]

I consider BBS the internet. Instead of connecting to a "server" you just connected to a guy's computer. The BBS was basically a website. Did it have live chat? Did it charge by time on phone or data transferred?

Before the rise of services such as Compuserve and AOL, the BBS was as you described - someone's computer.

That said, these were not fly-by-night operations. Although many were runs out of people's homes, they had dedicated userbases, user meetups, etc. Advertisements were run in computer magazines. Some did charge for access to certain boards (what we'd call a subforum now), but most of it was free.

The charge, if there was one, was from your phone company. The phone company treated modem calls the same as a voice call and you were charged per minute if long-distance. Local calls were generally free.

Incidentally, the larger bulletin boards had multiple lines. So, if one number was busy, you could call an alternate. And yes, that allowed 'live' chat. But only with one other person at a time.

A BBS I used to be on in the late 80s and that was local to me was a three line BBS for genealogy. I wasn't interested at all in genealogy, but the SysOp made a few boards for the local teenagers to post in.

I ended up buying my first PC and my first high end modem from that SysOp. He was in his early 60s in 1990, but all the local teens (including me) liked him. Great guy.

 

[MacBH928]

I'm a member of a few clubs that centre around outdoor activities / sports. Something we've all noticed across the board over the last ten or so years is how much older everyone is who participates. These clubs used to be chock full of adventurous youngsters but just about everyone I meet now is pretty much over 50. It's a big issue and just about every club I'm in makes huge efforts to attract younger people but with very little success. One would have thought that as it's now never been so easy as to find out where to go, how to do things and hook up with experienced people yet the opposite seems to be happening. There's clearly been a very profound social shift in the way people (particularly in the first world) both think and interact with their environment (away from the internet) over the past 15 years or so.

I have a theory that computers and online connectivity has an energy draining mechanism to the body and mind that keeps people more lazy and "drugged" . To prove my theory, I am willing to bet if you kept a bunch of teenagers without phone lines, internet, and videogames in the house they will be much more energetic and willing to go out and do physical activity instead of being a coach potatoe.

I think it happens subconsciously , like being exposed to harmful radiation, you do not feel it but its affecting your body.

Model railroads, Atari, VHS movie rentals, an HP scientific calculator, TRS-80, toys from the Sears Christmas Wish Book catalog, lots of time outdoors with friends, and on the weekends my father would let me use his firm's VAX 11/780, which took up an entire climate controlled room in his office building, to teach myself DCL programming. Acoustic modems to connect remotely. I was done with grad school before the Internet became a useful thing and even then there were no web browsers, only text-based resources and customized GUI-based applications on CD-ROM for shopping and travel planning.

Oh, and CompuServe. I still remember my login ID 73657,705.

-Your dad let you play with the company's expensive computer at the time? Wow, thats a huge risk

-You could shop and plan travel from a CD-ROM app before the internet?! I never heard of that

-How was compuserve+aol different that BSS or websites? I thought it was just a portal app that listed many websites?

I suspect that this tendency may have been further accelerated by the experience of the Covid lockdowns; some of my friends (who are in teaching, at either second level or third level) have said to me that part of the (mental) legacy of the Covid lockdowns is that the psychological wellbeing of a surprising number of youngsters is a lot more fragile and brittle than it was, adn that this has been expressed in areas such as a reluctance to engage in outside pursuits.

I think after COVID people realized they didn't have to leave the house to live so now they built a habit of working, learning, and socialising from home which is a down turn for the human social and mind well being. Even physically.

Why do you think that is. I notice the young people where I work are a lot less resilient than the older ones.
Between sickness, lateness and the many other issues they have I do wonder how things have changed so much.
I think I’ve had no more than 5 sick days since I started work many decades ago. Many seem to have that a year.

I think its simple. Older people had a lot more less expectations and a lot less going in their lives that made them less overhwlemed -> a lot less over burdened physically and mentally.
Pre-internet life:-

A guy would leave school or college and be grateful and happy to have a job, get married, and have children. Watching a movie was an experience, and eating outside was a treat.
People used to wait a whole week to catch 1 episode of a tv show.


post-internet life:-

Be a billioner before 30 (Forbes 30 under 30 ) . You have to own multiple business or become CEO. Want to watch a tv show? how about 12 years of every show produced in history streamed for $10 24/7 ? Want to catch a movie? Build your own PLEX server with every movie made in human history at a click of a button. How about videogames? Play all the games you want on Steam. Eating form resturants is the the normal with ubereats and deliveries. A dozen social apps and websites. Get exposed to world wide news happening the same minute (prior to that you had to wait for the news report at a specific time on tv or wait for the newspaper next day and even that is selected stories).

Its just too hectic and too fast for the single person to consume and manage all of this. Add in all the social events, going to the gym, having an app to manage every single aspect of your life including your house lighting system... its just too much.

I believe just like smoking awareness we should start an awareness about being less connected. I am in my path to dial down my connectivity online and I hope I succeed. People should understand that the internet is a tool, do not over do it just like desserts. Control your consumption.

Before the rise of services such as Compuserve and AOL, the BBS was as you described - someone's computer.

That said, these were not fly-by-night operations. Although many were runs out of people's homes, they had dedicated userbases, user meetups, etc. Advertisements were run in computer magazines. Some did charge for access to certain boards (what we'd call a subforum now), but most of it was free.

The charge, if there was one, was from your phone company. The phone company treated modem calls the same as a voice call and you were charged per minute if long-distance. Local calls were generally free.

Incidentally, the larger bulletin boards had multiple lines. So, if one number was busy, you could call an alternate. And yes, that allowed 'live' chat. But only with one other person at a time.

A BBS I used to be on in the late 80s and that was local to me was a three line BBS for genealogy. I wasn't interested at all in genealogy, but the SysOp made a few boards for the local teenagers to post in.

I ended up buying my first PC and my first high end modem from that SysOp. He was in his early 60s in 1990, but all the local teens (including me) liked him. Great guy.

-I wonder if telecom understood what BBS is and charged for them, or they just treated it as a regular phone call meaning calling a local one was free and the modems made the computer signal translations at both ends of the line

-Given that a BBS was a phone line connection, each phone line can take 1 caller, does this mean that a BBS could only have 1 user at a time unless it had multiple phone lines? It also makes me wonder why people paid money and effort to keep those ON meanwhile not gaining anything from it except as a hobby I guess. Also was dangerous if it had illegal content.