Pre Internet vs Post Internet

[Silvana]

I can appreciate life without internet and life with it because i have lived through both. But I wouldn't trade being a kid in the era i grew up in. These kids with smartphones are ridiculous. Too much these days hinges on all the technological advances. I find it so rude that I can be having a conversation with someone and they are playing on their device. I miss the little moments that happen when your bored and coming up with things to do. I think that is why creativity is gone. It wasn't that long ago "internet" was something you did for like 40 min or an hour. Then you lived life. It was an activity. Now it is a way of life. People are on the internet 24-7. Constant information coming at you. Constant negativity. What I see is that very few people have the ability to keep some sort of balance in this matter. I even have a hard time doing it myself, contemplating doing away with my smartphone. The young generation doesn't even know what pre-internet was like.


The internet took all the mystery out of life. I remember going to the mall to see boys. People don't really communicate within the family as much as we used to, people waking down the street don't communicate with each other at all, people used to greet others with a hello, good morning or whatever, now if you were to do that they would look at you as if you have two fucking heads or something and that is if they even bothered to acknowledge you. We can speak to someone across the world via video but we can no longer speak to the person next to us because that safety net of a screen isn't there, there is so much falseness being shoved in our faces people start thinking it's the norm, people who live out their lives on social media showing everything they do or eat or wear have some serious issues in my opinion, some kids will believe some stranger they think they know on YouTube before their own family. And young girls are growing up with the attitude that they are supposed to be gay. That it's the norm. I don't see many gay men here in this community but lesbian women are everywhere.






My daughter likes to stay in her room and text, listen to music, go on the computer and hang in her room. She comes down and we'll talk for like 10 minutes then back up to her room. I ask her if she wants to watch a movie with us and she says no. I've asked her if she is sad, etc and she says she is fine. She just likes to hang in her room. She is addicted to her goddamn phone. .


But there are some good things about the internet. Without the internet I wouldn't have the ability to ever hear things from great people like you here on this forum.

 

[Silvana]

People actually talk more on texting and Facebook now rather than in person or over the phone. It's so sad. Some people won’t even answer their phone but yet they’ll always respond on text. My one friend claims she can text faster than she talks. You wonder if 20 years from now if people will talk even less and less due to how much farther technology will go. People are going to get carpel tunnel from using their fingers and thumbs to text and also next problems from looking down at their phones so much.

 

[Emeris]

We do talk to random people online, like here, about things you never would in person. I cant imagine going to the pub and saying to you that you have lovely tits and arse.

But I do agree that the we are losing the art of conversation

 

[Silvana]

We do talk to random people online, like here, about things you never would in person. I cant imagine going to the pub and saying to you that you have lovely tits and arse.

But I do agree that the we are losing the art of conversation

We got the rare experience of living in both times. Do you agree that life was more personable and interactive, and people needed to tap into their creativity part of the brain more in an active way, rather than passively staring at a phone...

 

[Silvana]

We do talk to random people online, like here, about things you never would in person. I cant imagine going to the pub and saying to you that you have lovely tits and arse.

But I do agree that the we are losing the art of conversation

I wonder if your real life status and mine would have collided before this though.

 

[Emeris]

We got the rare experience of living in both times. Do you agree that life was more personable and interactive, and people needed to tap into their creativity part of the brain more in an active way, rather than passively staring at a phone...

Absolutely, even the freedom to do as we pleased. I went outside without any knowledge of where I was or what I was doing by my parents as long as I was home for dinner. Now we are almost micro managed.

 

[Silvana]

We do talk to random people online, like here, about things you never would in person. I cant imagine going to the pub and saying to you that you have lovely tits and arse.

But I do agree that the we are losing the art of conversation

I think I can agree with you in a way.

 

[Silvana]

People actually talk more on texting and Facebook now rather than in person or over the phone. It's so sad. Some people won’t even answer their phone but yet they’ll always respond on text. My one friend claims she can text faster than she talks. You wonder if 20 years from now if people will talk even less and less due to how much farther technology will go. People are going to get carpel tunnel from using their fingers and thumbs to text and also next problems from looking down at their phones so much.

I never said that it is all negative.But from what I can figure out the youth don't even spend their time watching good stuff online about the world, animals, history, music, movies, tv shows etc, they want to see "reality TV stars" & total trash like that. Just look at that show Love Island & that is what the Internet has done to a whole generation, these people are borderline retarded I swear to God. The thing that drive me insane is people taking photos of their food when a good 1/3rd of the world has hardly anything to eat so they can post it on Instagram.

 

[Silvana]

Absolutely, even the freedom to do as we pleased. I went outside without any knowledge of where I was or what I was doing by my parents as long as I was home for dinner. Now we are almost micro managed.

Leaving the house to get an actual, physical CD on release day was always such a great experience. I'd be so excited to get home and play it with no distractions while laying on my bed. I remember when I first started driving, how I'd literally fill a Saturday driving all around hitting used book and CD stores. Now, you can download a torrent of a band's entire back catalogue, including rarities, b-sides, fanclub releases, etc., and have it in minutes., and for free.
Mix tapes. The younger generation can't really appreciate what a significant gesture making a mix tape used to be. Today? Everyone sees the Awesome mix (or whatever) from GotG, they google what songs compose it, and in 4 minutes you have every one of those songs. Back in the day, there was no internet to look up each one of those songs...and then even after you did manage to put together your play list, you needed to meticulously record each and every one of those songs to a tape (making sure you had enough time on each side of the tape, too).

It was a long and difficult process, and if someone ever gave you a mix tape, it was clear that they really cared about you. Anyone around my age (or older) can remember with nostalgia the process of putting together a mix tape. It was even more work when you didn't own the song you wanted on CD or tape and had to wait by the radio until they played it and hope the DJ didn't talk too much over the intro. A real labor of love.
I remember spending nights by the radio with my index fingers eagerly twitching against the "play" and "record" buttons just waiting for the opportunity to get that one song I've been waiting for. I also remember the frustration that would sometimes occur when I wouldn't correctly calculate the times for all the songs and would be in the middle of recording my perfect playlist when ::CLICK!:: the tape just ended because I ran out of room.

I look back on those times fondly. When you wondered about something and didn't know the answer, it became a quest. It might have taken days, weeks, or even years. And then, finally, when you learned that Meat Loaf's real name was Michael, it was like opening the briefcase from Pulp Fiction. Then you'd go around dropping that random tidbit into conversations for the next year, just because.
My friends and I in middle school and high school used to talk on the phone all the time. We could spend 2 hours on the phone and giggling over stuff.

When my crush would call, I'd be forced to have an actual conversation with him. There's no time to think hard about your next response, as it is now with texting.

Nowadays kids may pretend to be witty over the internet/texting, but in my time if you weren't that funny, there was nothing you could do.

 

[Emeris]

There are some good memories there and all you say is soo true lol My favourite radio station being Radio Luxemburg and Radio Caroline.

Being able to keep music for years on records, cd and tape. Buying the albums because of a song but looking forward to hearing the rest of the tracks to.

 

[Silvana]

There are some good memories there and all you say is soo true lol My favourite radio station being Radio Luxemburg and Radio Caroline.

Being able to keep music for years on records, cd and tape. Buying the albums because of a song but looking forward to hearing the rest of the tracks to.

When I was 15 (1992) I bought the Point Break soundtrack in Virgin Megastore, just for this song (there were a couple others on there that were ok too, luckily). Imagine trying to explain that to a 15 year old today! Ratt and Point Break . One of the last songs of a great generation .

 

[Ben1993]

I went out drinking last night with a bunch of my friends, I'm pretty young, and it shocked me how much people spent on the mobile phones. There was a young couple out, his girlfriend was glued to her screen, and he was glued to his screen, if that's an idea of a date, you can count me out.

 

[Silvana]

I went out drinking last night with a bunch of my friends, I'm pretty young, and it shocked me how much people spent on the mobile phones. There was a young couple out, his girlfriend was glued to her screen, and he was glued to his screen, if that's an idea of a date, you can count me out.

I am appalled when I am out in public, and I see YOUNG kids...like ages 4 through 10, playing with the current galaxy phones. Their eyes never leave their phones to even look at the world around them.

When I grew up, there were no cell phones. It was "be home before dark."
It was fun with out internet and cellphones. Things were much simpler.
We managed to have social lives without cell phones.

We waited and called someone back when we got home. Or you went and knocked on someone's door to see if they were home. The rule of "be home before the sun goes down/streetlights come on" was the best rule. Your parents didn't care what happened as long as you were home by then. Going outside completely unsupervised, having to actually think and figure things out as opposed to googling everything. Oh, and walking to school was a blast. Being at home meant eating, doing homework, watching some TV, and sleeping. I'd say it was a lot better than staring into a screen for 8 hours a day.

 

[Silvana]

I went out drinking last night with a bunch of my friends, I'm pretty young, and it shocked me how much people spent on the mobile phones. There was a young couple out, his girlfriend was glued to her screen, and he was glued to his screen, if that's an idea of a date, you can count me out.

My brother-in-law absolutely insists on conversing with my husband via SMS. I've watched 20 minute text 'conversations' that could be had in 2 minutes on a call. Bizarre!?! Remember when you actually called people to share good news, congratulate them for something, wish them a happy birthday, etc. Now all those things are taken care of with a 5 second Facebook post. You don't have to put any effort or real emotion into maintaining relationships with people. It makes social interaction feel hollow to me.The other one that's worth remembering is why the Guinness Book of World Records exists. The reason is people kept arguing about random stuff over drinks , and back then you couldn't whip out your phone to answer. Instead we would argue about random facts for hours because no one knew the answer. That was a great time...everyone was right and everyone was wrong. It didn't matter the correct answer. The argument was the best part. Meetups were hard. Waiting around for your friends for long periods was common, because you had no idea why they were held up or if they were coming at all. Lots of value was placed on being on time even for casual things, because you didn't want to make people worried or upset. Also, you had to write down meetup times in a book, or remember them all and risk failing. Excitment over seeing someone you haven't seen in awhile. I run into someone I haven't seen in years and I already know everything that's happened and we just say hi and make small talk. It was a fun thing, giving highlights of your life in the past years. There are no highlights anymore.

 

[Silvana]

I gotta admit I hate it when people use their phone at the expense of a conversation with someone in the present.

But you know who's to blame for that? It's not the phone.

 

[Silvana]

With smartphones and social media, we started using our phones all the time. Dating apps are now for everything: finding friends, hookups, a third for your threesome, another couple to swing, someone who just wants naked pics because it’s more exciting to jerk it to “real” people. IMO online dating would be so much better if all the pervert guys stopped using them, or simply learned to behave in a civilized manner. That's the root of the problem, for both women and men.

Today, most people actually use dating apps for non-social reasons. Some look for the ego boost, o see how many matches they can get, which makes them feel good. Other people swipe away mindlessly like playing a video game (blame that on Tinder, who invented the swipe).

Both those practices forget the actual human on the other side of the match. These practices also lead to a lot of ghosting and what looks like rejection to people looking for actual dates on dating apps. Add to that the phenomenon that people behave more aggressively online than they would in person, and you have a layer of outright asshole on top of it.

 

[ianwxx]

Good Morning
I do agree with almost everything that has been said so far. I am 61 and fondly remember the days when you made friends and found girlfriends by going out. Pubs , clubs , sports teams etc.

There is too great a reliance on the internet these days and one thing which I must say with regard to the dating adult scene is that there are so many fakes or people who talk the talk but have no intention of meeting anyone.

I think as long as you limit your time using the net and keep your expectations at a realistic level then there are a few opportunities , I have used dating sites since becoming single again at the age of 50 and have met some nice ladies. I will stress again though be realistic ! if someone agrees to meet for a coffee or drink it may well end up as just that.

Good Luck
Ian