WAIT! So you're saying that there weren't smartphones OR internet when you were a kid????

I remember the Internet in 1994, we were upper middle class but didn't see a need for it yet. It wasn't until late 95-early 96 that I got AOL and the world changed.

I had a cell phone at 16 years old in 1994 but I was an outlier. Problem was you couldn't leave it on because of the battery life so I still needed a pager and it cost about $1 per minute.

Pay phones were great.

I wrote my papers by researching encyclopedias.

I never really used maps, and I only use GPS today to assess the traffic. Waze is awesome.

Gen X has the unique experience of remembering what is was like before smart phones and widespread use of the internet but also able to be early adopters of both.

Ummm . . . Man wrote:

Ummm . . . ever heard of stone tablets? Charcoal? Smoke signals?

ummmmm ever hear of smelling each others feces for relevant information?

Rainy Day wrote:

Gen X has the unique experience of remembering what is was like before smart phones and widespread use of the internet but also able to be early adopters of both.

Pretty sure I'm a "millennial" (born in 1983) and I didn't get a cell phone until my 20s, first used the Internet in middle school, and used paper maps to navigate after I learned to drive. Also had a rotary phone in our house, when we got cordless phones it was pretty revolutionary.

The "internet" was an informal network of BBS setups on people's personal computers.

People didn't "look things up" all that much. Only geeks used their computers for communication. Rather people remembered what they knew and had critical thinking skills and the ability to figure stuff out. And what people didn't need to know, they didn't really care about.

Most of the information people get from the internet is useless and much of it is false. It is mostly for entertainment and recreation, and for many is a complete waste of time that turns them into degenerate asocial slobs doomed to spend most of their lives psychoactively medicated.

Without having a phone all the time, you could go away from other people to where they couldn't find you and bother you and addle your thoughts. This made people wise and strong. Now people are foolish and weak.

OP - I was born in 1958. Trust me. The access to accurate, up to date information and the ability to be interconnected with others is much better now than when I was a kid. Yes. We used to have to go to the library to get information. Lots of times this information was really out of date or there was only one source for information.

Kids are also much more social today. When I grew up you were limited to talking and playing with friends who were on your block. Kids these days can communicate with friends all over town or even the world. When I grew up and school ended, if kids weren't on your block you wouldn't talk to them until the start of the next school year.

Sorry old timers. Things were not so great before the internet.

Gen X has the unique experience of remembering what is was like before smart phones and widespread use of the internet but also able to be early adopters of both.

And that's why the internet sucks. Now they're uploading their kids entire lives to facebook with no permission, no regard for privacy, like there's no tomorrow. They think that one study = proof and are constantly linking to articles whose politics they agree with because they can't think critically or reason things out for themselves anymore. Worst generation ever (except for all the ones that went before).

The following is Satire for those of you that can define it.

Yes, back in the 1950's we in our Black communities, had black kids pouring boiling water on each other. The best challenge ever.

It was great.

--------

Please, don't attack me because I might be a black Conservative Republican.

All black conservatives are attacked, hopefully we won't be lynched by White Antifas-fascists or white liberals.

LOL reading some of the posts, a few of my own recollections:

-Being nervous calling a girl and REALLY nervous that her dad would answer the phone.

-Card Catalog at the library through the first 3 years of collage, they finally got it on a computer.

-Running up expensive phone bills calling collect to home from a pay phone.

-Risque photos to be developed were taken to a place that took them off site for actual development.

-Life with internet/cell phones is not better imo, just different.

Born in 2000 wrote:

How did you ever look things up?

I didn't. I didn't know shit compared to today.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Most of the information people get from the internet is useless and much of it is false.

Only stupid people can't search reliable sources of information from the internet.

ghgjgj wrote:

Born in 2000 wrote:

How did you ever look things up?

I didn't. I didn't know shit compared to today.

You still don't know shit.

I still remember getting a D on a paper in high school. We had to choose a country in Africa. I picked Fhodesia off the globe in the library and used obviously outdated books and encyclopedia from the public library. This was 1983 and fortunately my teacher was educated enough to enlighten me.

This would not happen today with the internet.

OK OK OK wrote:

You still don't know shit.

I do compared to before internet.

Great grandson of John Titor wrote:

LMAO! You addle-pated 2017 troglodytes can't even produce enough Ununpentium to focus a gravity beam into space and warp the space to you. It's amazing how you microcephalic buffoons even exist at all without space and time travel. And you call yourselves technological.

^^^this is what makes the internet so great. I just googled John Titor, ununpentium, gravity beam. Now imagine how many other humans with above average intelligence will read this post and learn new things. With the internet people post ideas, theories, experiments, can collaborate with others in real time across the globe and even outer space!

When I grew up we didn't have an answering machine until mid 80s. We had a rotary phone in the kitchen, 2 regular house phones, no call waiting, no caller I.D. First cordless house phone was around 1990. First internet access was AOL in 94 with a 14.4 dial up modem.

Got my first cell phone in 2000. My smart phone has faster internet than my first computer.

Cecil R wrote:

I still remember getting a D on a paper in high school. We had to choose a country in Africa. I picked Fhodesia off the globe in the library and used obviously outdated books and encyclopedia from the public library. This was 1983 and fortunately my teacher was educated enough to enlighten me.

This would not happen today with the internet.

Lol

By 2020 have millions of uncensorable 24/7 4K TV channels on fiber/WiFi, and

100,000 uncensorable 4K OTA TV channels via satellites.

ghgjgj wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

Most of the information people get from the internet is useless and much of it is false.

Only stupid people can't search reliable sources of information from the internet.

Sure, there are plenty of reliable sources of useless, false information online. The true information is a needle in a haystack, so finding it means figuring things out for yourself which can be done without the internet.

Consider this: before the public internet, NASA sent people to the moon and built space shuttles. Now it can't even launch a human into space. Problem-solvers and creative thinkers are in short supply.

Bad Wigins wrote:

ghgjgj wrote:

Only stupid people can't search reliable sources of information from the internet.

Sure, there are plenty of reliable sources of useless, false information online. The true information is a needle in a haystack, so finding it means figuring things out for yourself which can be done without the internet.

Consider this: before the public internet, NASA sent people to the moon and built space shuttles. Now it can't even launch a human into space. Problem-solvers and creative thinkers are in short supply.

Thanks to the internet we learned that there is no real benefit to sending people to the moon or send a human into space.

Internet wins again.