Ask HN: What do you miss about the life before Internet? - jimsojim
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FroshKiller
Nothing. I'm 34 years old and grew up in the rural Southeastern U.S. We had a
meager public library that was a 20-minute drive from my home. I spent as much
time as I could get away with in my schools' libraries.

My entire childhood, I had the sense of a world much bigger than the one I
lived in that was just beyond my reach. My mother could give me glimpses when
we went on vacation, but I was living years out of touch.

When we got Internet access, I got connected in a life-changing way to that
world. It transformed how I learn, how I discover, what I remember, how I
connect with people, everything, and all of it for the better. I think I'd
rather die than go back.

~~~
meat_fist
My hometown didn't have sidewalks. My house was a long and extremely unsafe
walk away from anything of value, and my mother worked insane hours. When she
finally caved and got dial up, I remember everything changed very
aggressively. There was no longer a physical barrier between me and new
information or new people. I could be stuck in my isolated home and still have
hours of things to do. Sometimes I think the people that say things like "I
wish we could go back to before everyone had the internet" never lived in an
area where, without the internet, you never really had anything to begin with.

------
CM30
How you could enjoy video games without having the entire game spoiled for you
before the release date. Pre internet, you played at your leisure, didn't know
what to expect and saw new things/character/levels/gameplay mechanics as they
came. So you'd play say, Ocarina of Time or Final Fantasy VII and every area,
boss, new attack, etc would be a surprise.

Nowadays on the other hand, the internet means that a video of the final boss
and ending will probably be up on Youtube in less than a week. Probably a
matter of hours after the release date to be honest, there's a sort of
obsession with recording the entirety of every new game as quickly as
possible.

I also miss the existence of rumours and hearsay about stuff in video games.
Like, of getting the Triforce in Ocarina of Time, Luigi in Mario 64 or finding
Mew in Pokemon Red and Blue. Pre internet and early internet, this sort of
stuff spread via the school playground and other places like a weird game of
Chinese Whispers or Telephone. It was nuts the kind of stuff that you'd hear,
like the the story about the flying pink cow that would apparently take you to
the Temple of Light or something.

But thanks to the modern internet, these games now get disassembled about a
week after their release, so people know exactly what's included and can
confirm or rule out any interesting rumour before it can get started.

~~~
Nadya
I enjoy not getting into arguments with people who buy into each and every
rumor, no matter how absurd it is. Though I'll chalk this up to a difference
in gossip culture.

I absolutely abhor rumors and gossip. Give me some facts or some data -
otherwise don't waste my time. Other people enjoy gossiping and get excited
about rumors and the "mystery" that comes with them.

------
lloyddobbler
Writing (and reading) letters. Email brings speed - and brevity. But letters
forced writers to be more...deliberate with their words.

I'm currently reading a collection of letters from Richard Feynman - curated
by his daughter, who weeded through file cabinets full of them, forwarded from
Caltech's archives. One can chart the course of a life by the letters that
person wrote. It makes me wonder - when all of us are gone, will someone
publish collections of emails from our noteworthy contemporaries? I doubt it.

Digital communications are fleeting. While they can more easily be archived
than a drawer full of paper letters, they can also easily be deleted with a
keystroke. Email and text communications offer many advantages, but they lack
the weight of the written word - and the longevity.

------
haylem
People's ability to accept and even enjoy being bored.

Related: People's ability to accept they cannot - and should not and do not
deserve to - get everything right now.

~~~
Marinlemaignan
and i miss the time: where they were no selfies all over the place. when
people weren't such egocentrics. when no one would loose a career for a single
tweet. and, last but not least, when no one else than my newsagent would know
which porn i'm into...

------
JSeymourATL
Newspapers-- it was once considered a professional requirement to read them
daily. Beyond local news-- you were really on your information game if you
read the NY Times or Wall Street Journal.

The printed paper format seems to lend itself more easily to tripping over
interesting articles that you might not normally seek out. Versus mindless,
repetitive web surfing.

And of course, if you wanted to share a news item with someone-- it meant
cutting it out and mailing via the postal service. Usually, accompanied with a
brief handwritten note. Always nice to receive. Now a lost art form.

~~~
outericky
I disagree. In college (1995-99) I had to subscribe to WSJ for my business
courses, and I hated it. I would have much rather had a digital subscription;
I'd read it when I could, I could easily share it. Instead, I got a disdain
for paper subscriptions.

~~~
DrScump
They had digital subscriptions. In fact, I'd guess that WSJ.com was the first
successful paid-online-subscription newspaper that still endures as paid
subscription. (The San Jose Mercury was earlier, but they went free later for
a number of years.)

Back in the 90s, WSJ Op-Ed content was free, but the rest was paywalled.

~~~
outericky
Yes, but the class requirement was the paper subscription. Pretty sure the
professor was just an WSJ paperboy.

------
hanniabu
People being completely cool with just going for a walk. It could be a freak
nice 70 degree day in December and people are still inside watching tv,on
computers, playing video games, texting, etc. It's a sad world when you can't
separate yourself enough to enjoy the moment.

~~~
equalarrow
I'll second this one. I love walking. I've walked all over Chicago, SF,
Manhattan, and other cities and there's just something about being _there_, in
the moment. It'll never happen the same way again.

Another thing I'll add is people just standing around waiting for something -
anything. For the light to turn green at a crosswalk. Waiting for a friend to
get done using the restroom after a movie lets out. Waiting for coffee or
food. Having a drink. Phones are everywhere, all the time. Nonstop.

The internet has provided a way for me to sustain my livelihood and I love it
for that. The same way I love electricity and plumbing. But, I feel like this
is just the beginning and there might be some day where no one will pay
attention to anything around them. Only their devices.

------
outericky
People not constantly staring at their phones. Everywhere. Outside. Inside. In
restaurants. At work.

~~~
CM30
How about when supposably serving customers? That's got to be the worse one.
You'd go get a coffee or something, and the person behind the counter would be
more interested in seeing what's happening on Twitter or Instagram than
actually taking the order or serving people.

~~~
outericky
There was a story[1] last year about a restaurant that did some research and
found that wait times (and subsequently Yelp ratings) suffered because of
phone usage by patrons.

tl;dr - people spending time on their phones, slows down service/table
turnover at restaurants.

[1] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2690490/Service-
time...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2690490/Service-time-
restaurants-doubled-past-ten-years-customers-cell-phones-blame-claims-busy-
NYC-restaurant.html)

------
ddingus
Not a lot.

I sometimes miss the more quiet world, getting lost in my own thoughts,
interacting directly with people, idle pleasures of various kinds. Of course,
I visit that world with an off-grid camping trip each year. A good week being
in a beautiful place with no possibility of connecting to anything is awesome!

Then I get bored, play, hike, explore, talk, relax, and sort of reset. I come
back charged and ready to go!

Really, my only regret is not having Internet sooner. I would have done so
much more as a kid.

------
beige
I was an only child, isolated, rural, so alone. So alone so alone so alone.
Fuck life before the internet.

Wow, that looks like a terrible little poem.

Also, being a smart kid but not having any role models or anyone who knew
about the stuff I was interested in to help me in the right direction.

Connection to the outside world could've made a huge difference when an
abusive home life was my entire world.

------
AnimalMuppet
The ability to start a face-to-face conversation with someone without feeling
like I was intruding on their electronic world.

------
apryldelancey
Reading more books.

------
joezydeco
Movies were more enjoyable.

Now everyone has either spoiled the movie ahead of you, bitched online about
how awful it was, analyzed the trailer and figured out all the surprises (or
the trailer itself gave it away), or we're all tracking the weekend box office
returns to confirm our choice of movie as the Winning Choice or as The Bomb
That You Shouldn't See (But Will Be A Cult Classic in Twenty Years When It's
Given a Chance)

Movies also stayed in the theaters longer. Remember when the original run of
_Star Wars_ lasted almost an entire year?

~~~
DrScump
_Plus_ the absence of internet-enabled devices (phones, etc.) in theaters.

I recall when "The Godfather" and "Rocky" were in first-run theaters for at
_least_ a year. The Syufy theaters had a quarter-page print ad for one or more
films every single day.

------
robodale
In 1986, I "text chatted" via my Commodore 64 to another kid in a neighboring
town, across our 600 baud modems, using our parent's home phone land lines.
I'll never forget typing the white letters on the blue screen: "Hey Brian can
you see this?"

...then seeing the screen cursor start to produce characters that I didn't
type:

"Yep sure did"

It would be 8 more years before I accessed the Internet in 1994.

I think what I miss is the thrilling self-discovery of communicating in a new
medium.

------
josh-wrale
Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs), discovering new things at public libraries,
traveling around to different libraries, having a tan.

------
_RPM
I was born in 1990, started using the Internet at around age 5 with Windows
95. I don't remember life without it. I remember using Encarta, and playing
Oregon Trail, and AOL's program. Those are my first memories of the Internet
and Computing in general.

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Raed667
I miss not being so hooked and dependent on social networks.

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kleer001
Less apparently BS businesses and BS books based on the emergent qualities of
the Internet. Less inboxes to check.

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tmaly
This was a post on reddit that was highlighted on businessinsider.

I miss less distractions

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coralreef
Physical photographs

------
jimmyzhao
sports.

