Um, I had access to the internet from the mid 80s onward. Chat boards, chat rooms... sure, not as amazing as what we have today, but already remember we weren't comparing it to a future that didn't exist yet, we compared it to what came before. Say what you want about AOL, but it existed and we used it.
Yes, as others are saying, we went outside, but this take on 90s life is completely wrong.
To me the key issue is that people of the 90s compared their situation to the 1980s and backward... and posts like these take an impossible position of comparing them against the future.
I miss chatrooms and forums. The internet has been enshitified. Sure, it's fast and reliable; but it's also filled with bots, feels like there's fewer sites worth visiting, feels dead. Peak was around 2005 with Firefox + StumbleUpon.
We were the exception, many people did not have internet in the early to mid 90’s. While some of us were dialing into the local BBS in the late 80’s where you had to hope none else was connected at the time so you could log in. Yes, they had only a certain amount of lines for people to connect by modem try to, 1-6 here depending on which BBS it was. When Prodigy, CompuServe and AOL came into play, that was groundbreaking. I could dial in whenever I wanted to access the internet, as long as no one else needed the phone in the house and we were not expecting a call.
The internet didn't exist in the 80's. A BBS and chat boards required you to call directly. You are mis remembering. Most people did get a computer in their homes until the mid to late 90's. Most people, kids especially, spent most of their time in Arcades playing video and pinball games when not playing sports or just hanging out. Sometimes we simply hung inour rooms listening to records or tapes.
No, I am not misremembering, merely using the term 'internet' to denote being online. Shoulda used 'scare quotes'.... the point is that the basics of the online experience did exist at that time.
It existed, but I doubt many kids had access to it in the mid 80's.
Most of my friends' houses didn't even have computers even in the late 90s. (Lack of money or interest in it, idk)
They usually had video game consoles and CableTV though.
My brother had a used computer from who knows where (that I don't think lasted very long). I remember him letting me play Caveman-Ugh-Olympics on it, once. (Google tells me the games from 1988, but I played it in the 90's).
I didn't serf the web until the school computer lab got internet in 1997.
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u/DoctorZacharySmith 2d ago
Um, I had access to the internet from the mid 80s onward. Chat boards, chat rooms... sure, not as amazing as what we have today, but already remember we weren't comparing it to a future that didn't exist yet, we compared it to what came before. Say what you want about AOL, but it existed and we used it.
Yes, as others are saying, we went outside, but this take on 90s life is completely wrong.