Growing up, what was the internet like for you?

[Grant]

When I was growing up, I was just at that point and time where the internet was gaining popularity. I didn't use the internet until the early 2000s. I remember getting my first PC and surfing the internet through AOL, aka, America Online. It felt so new and fresh at the time. I wish I could revisit that feeling. As time went on though, encountering viruses and malware, it wasn't easy for me lol. But I learned and now days I'm well protected on the web.

What was it like using the internet for the first time?

 

[glitch]

We had a computer in my house when I was very little. This is the early 90s. I remember dial up, old games, etc.

When I was still younger, I only used the computer to play games. I did not spend much time online. Not until I was a bit older.

 

[Melanie M]

When I was growing up, I was just at that point and time where the internet was gaining popularity. I didn't use the internet until the early 2000s. I remember getting my first PC and surfing the internet through AOL, aka, America Online. It felt so new and fresh at the time. I wish I could revisit that feeling. As time went on though, encountering viruses and malware, it wasn't easy for me lol. But I learned and now days I'm well protected on the web.

What was it like using the internet for the first time?

My story is similar to yours. I got my first computer in 1999-2000. Used AOL as well, was always great to hear the "You've got Mail" as opposed to the boring "Welcome" ... waiting for the rest and then nothing. And you'd start all the second-guessing like maybe I shouldn't have emailed back so quickly, why didn't they email me back, maybe the AOL guy just made a mistake and I DO have mail. Hahaha
Email was so exciting in the old days, wasn't it? Now they have all the instant
chatting and (worse yet) video chatting, my brother always says if it isn't strictly for business purposes, then it's only being used by psychos and pervs.
I still prefer regular emailing, over everything else. Even better than phone calls or texts.

 

[Lingaraj]

When I was little like in 2008 our family had only one phone which was my dad's. It is a Nokia keypad phone with 2G internet speed. The max internet speed I observed was 200 Kbps and the internet was also expensive at that time like 1.5 USD for one GB pack. Now I have optical fiber internet at home which costs around 8 USD a month and gives 3000 GB at 30 Mbps speed.

 

[Nomad]

Even though I used the internet for the first time, I did not start using the internet regularly until 2004. That's when I started writing for a newspaper. I was supposed to send articles through email, so I had to use the internet. I learned about work opportunities in 2007 and started exploring the internet widely.

 

[Cory]

I was excited about using it to mostly play flash games and lurk on joke sites. It seems like even at its early stage it contained so much information that it was unreal. Using the internet eventually led me to find out about forums and that's what really started my internet journey to this day.

 

[Riberet19]

well I started using the internet in 2003 if Im not mistaken, the first things I did was play video games honestly, and then I was discovering YouTube and other entertainment sites, really at first I used it only for entertainment, it was later when I started to give it other uses, for example academic or work.

 

[Reverie]

I had a computer from an early age for CD-rom games. I don't recall using the internet actively until I was in 5th grade. I of course used it for research projects prior to that, but I just don't remember much. In 5th/6th grade I was on forums looking for information about a video game. This was 2003ish. I remember AIM messenger and blogs and eventually myspace and designing my page! Youtube wasn't a thing yet when I started - but random videos were somewhere!

I remember the numa numa song being super popular... Still get it stuck in my head!