What year did you really start using the internet and when did you think was the prime?

Xennial said:
1) All the clout chasing culture etc. on social media that started in the 2010s all began after all the ppl that weren't early on the internet, it was after the internet was gentrified

2) People that were on it before big tech came in and gentrified it
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“Gentrified”, fam?
 
The era between AOL instant messenger and the inception of facebook/myspace, give or take. Felt like a nice balance between living life socially and virtually.

AIM and early social media were more of a vehicle for extending your reach towards meeting people in real life, whereas now it seems more like folks are content living through their screens the majority of the time. I know when I first got AIM it was 90% for planning the next move, getting a number, finding a ride and so forth.. Then facebook brought in a more creative medium for doing more of the same.

Once social media became monetized it was curtains.

Also, the internet was policed less (good and bad). This was big for file sharing.

Dial up and early cable modems combined with usually one desktop in the entire household also made it so you had to be more economical with your internet time which was better socially speaking for kids.
 
getback said:
The era between AOL instant messenger and the inception of facebook/myspace, give or take. Felt like a nice balance between living life socially and virtually.

AIM and early social media were more of a vehicle for extending your reach towards meeting people in real life, whereas now it seems more like folks are content living through their screens the majority of the time. I know when I first got AIM it was 90% for planning the next move, getting a number, finding a ride and so forth.. Then facebook brought in a more creative medium for doing more of the same.

Once social media became monetized it was curtains.

Also, the internet was policed less (good and bad). This was big for file sharing.

Dial up and early cable modems combined with usually one desktop in the entire household also made it so you had to be more economical with your internet time which was better socially speaking for kids.
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Yea. Social media today isn’t bad per se but MySpace in 2005-06 was where it was at
 
Used it a little on and off back in the late 90s. Didn't really start using daily till the early 2000s. First time I got broadband (Road Runner) was when that happened. That would be Spectrum today, I believe. Sometimes I wonder whatever happened to stuff like Lolcats. Don't miss the dumb "1337" leet speak though. Kinda miss Limewire and Kazza.

I know there's a lot of bs out there today, but I think the best days are right now and in the future. It's mind boggling to think about what we have access to in a matter of seconds. Not to mention a lot of it is free.
 
Autumn ‘94 for me. My dad got some sort of work bonus and announced he was buying a PC - one of his partner’s husband owned a computer store so gave him a deal - it was about $5k!

28.8k modem and Windows 3.1. I can still remember the serious upgrade to W95 a year later.

NBA.com was one of the earlier sites and was great for me - saved me waiting multiple days to read scores in the newspaper. I remember downloading grainy 10s clips that took about 10 minutes each.

We paid for internet access and for the phone calls back then - it was really limited.

There are 2 things that jump out at me though. Summer of ‘95 I worked at a summer camp and at the end everyone shared their contact details - one person gave put their email address. The next summer everyone gave their email. I started college in ‘95 and we had a big library with a room with computers in - over the next summer they switched it so there were computers everywhere and the books were compressed into smaller rooms.

I work for a university now and most of the students haven’t even seen the library - we can just put everything online.
 
Started using around 1994. Napster changed the game, though, years later.

Meanwhile, my parents built their business based on the web. They were early adapters, and became very successful using online tools.
 
703 hwy said:
Hasn’t it ever been address why we don’t have downvotes on NT? :lol:
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More work for the admins. They don't want to police that stuff. Better to have a mostly positive community without things like downvotes. Thankfully, Reddit provides plenty of downvote opportunities.
 
1999 for me when I was in middle school. That’s when I started using Napster, eBay, and cdnow. In 2000 we got a new pc, which had CD/RW capabilities, and I was obsessed.

Also discovered internet porn around this time. I used to go on sites and print out the images I liked, and then proceeded to delete the browser history. I used to sell them to my friends for $0.25 each lol.
 
I started on the internet when I got my own computer in my room when I was 12 in 02. At that time we had dialup but had a separate phone line just for the internet. Pops would call me on that line when he wasn’t home and if he couldn’t get through he’d get pissed since I wasn’t allowed to use the internet when no one was home. I still did it and went on limewire to download music and porn pics. Always sucked waiting for a pic to download only to find out it wasn’t actual porn. Then came MySpace and dedicating time to macking females when I was supposed to be online doing homework lol.
 
2001 for me. I was 14 years old and it was the end of my 8th grade year. When we comcast first started offering internet service, it was a game changer because we can literally be on the phone and go surf online at the same time. It wasn’t common at the time while everyone was still using dial up.
 
I can’t even remember the year I started on the internet, it feels like it’s always been there to some capacity or another. I remember dial up, to “high speed” to the changes we have now. I just feel like I’ve always been connected to the internet one way or another

And I think probably about the time I found sneakers, that’s when the internet peaked from my perspective (starting like 06-08. Whenever I lurked/joined NT. Lol) . Streetwear, Comeback Season/So Far Gone Drake years, 2Dopeboyz, etc. the internet used to be so much fun. :lol:|l

In my city I feel like internet thought process and concepts just hit since the last presidency and I definitely view the internet as a type of gentrified space because of that as well. It’s not as free/open/creative as it used to be or at least used to feel
 
Peep Game said:
Lol at x videos being on there. It’s the datpiff of flicks. People pretend like they don’t use it but it has all the classics and rare stuff you can’t really find on the supposed better sites/apps.
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- Wild that xvideos is on there when Phub gets referenced way more.
- Amazed that Yahoo ever retook the lead from google (even though a brief period)

To answer OP question for me it was early 00's. Wifi becoming mainstream took internet **** to another level.
 
just was talking about this recently with someone in reference to people "growing up on the internet."

I remember we got a computer in the mid 90s, this was like 4th or 5th grade.
Previous experience with computers was in school playing that Apple game were you can draw things by typing directions.

I really don't remember anything we were using the computer for back then tho and can't recall any heavy usage until I got to highschool.(1999)

In highschool we were using it a lot for school research of course but this is when I really started being online.
Lot's of yahoo chat, AIM, P2P, different types of forums (hip hop and automotive etc.), also found Niketalk around this time.

After highschool I would say a lot of my online use was related to video games until mobile internet became a thing.

tldr I definitely been using computers all my life but the usage is not like today.

nowadays you on the internet most of your day even subconsciously, I think the way people just consume social media without meaningful interaction or discussion causes a lot of problems and weird thinking.

also it makes no sense to me that we have all this knowledge available at the palm of our hand yet people are so stubborn about learning anything.
 
Speed is a big factor. The amount of data downloaded and uploaded today wasn't possible in the 90s. It was better going outside to play or chill out than wait for a web page to load or a file to download. So the information is available quicker today. You can expect people to be more connected to use the internet, and obtain things at a rate that is a bigger amount over less time.
 
Air Money said:
Speed is a big factor. The amount of data downloaded and uploaded today wasn't possible in the 90s. It was better going outside to play or chill out than wait for a web page to load or a file to download. So the information is available quicker today. You can expect people to be more connected to use the internet, and obtain things at a rate that is a bigger amount over less time.
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I feel like mobile was more of the big game changer to take the balance away, before mobile you were only online when u got back to your desktop or laptop but mobile you're connected every waking minute
 
It was magical in 7th grade through 2nd year of college time for me. AIM, selling stuff on ebay, A/S/L etc. Pretty much the internet was amazing when it was desktop computer based. The second it became laptop, phone, mobile it’s become so so much worse (for society).
 
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