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Offline Lumi Kløvstad

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Goddamn I miss the old 1.0 internet
« on: December 15, 2016, 02:02:38 AM »
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So I was touring the old Space Jam website (as I occasionally do) and reliving a whole bunch of childhood, when I stumble onto some missing bits that just dead end.

..No. I wanted to keep going, you monsters!

And while the nostalgia is utterly lost on people who were either too young or didn't have internet at all in the 1990's, well... web design kind of sucked by modern standards. But we made it work, and while the end results were about as pretty as the mugshot for the Frankenstein Creature, the fact that it worked at all was kind of sexy. These were the days of Geocities, Tripod, and Angelfire. MySpace wasn't around to be a meme yet, and above all, America Online seemed like it ruled all. Furthermore, we ALL had dial up (Only folks like Bill Gates and co. could afford broadband in those days, or at least it seemed that way), which was accompanied by the most delightful noise to ever grace your eardrums. We didn't have Facebook groups, we had fanlistings and fansites (most of which were hosted on the aforementioned Geocities, Tripod, or Angelfire), and you were a trailblazer if you had one. The opening of Friendster heralded the beginning of the Social Media Era, and all the cool kids were using it, and neither Apple nor Google had yet taken over the effing world. Indeed, Google was barely getting started by the close of the 1.0 era.

And I guess most importantly about the Internet 1.0 era was that it was, apparently, NOT "the internet" but "the world wide web". Oh, and everything felt like it broke every half hour.

That too.

But despite all the troubles that came with it and the frustrations of the limitations of the technology, I miss it a lot.

Not because it was in any way better than what we have now (BY NO MEANS), but because it all still felt infinite, especially to those of us who were kids at the time, and like the best was yet to come.

Now, in more ways than one, it feels sort of like we're rapidly approaching the end of the internet.

Not literally of course. But the wild west anything-is-possible feel of the digital frontier is now very greatly diminished, and I miss when we had it in abundance.

That's all.
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Offline Shiroi Koumori

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Re: Goddamn I miss the old 1.0 internet
« Reply #1 on: December 15, 2016, 02:15:38 AM »
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I remember the geocities days. I used to have a geocities site before yahoo took it down.
Don't remind me of the dial up. I was stuck with it until 2005. It was a nightmare waiting for it to connect.

Offline zangetsu468

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Re: Goddamn I miss the old 1.0 internet
« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2016, 03:34:10 AM »
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I remember getting a PC just after school finished. We used to live in a 2 storey house and I'd have to run upstairs to connect the phone port, I wired that sucker from my bedroom around every door frame and cornice, behind a bookshelf and around the stairwell.

I remember ICQ and mirc, I remember my good friend using ftp to download various things. I remember Napster and WinMX. Good times.
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Offline X

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Re: Goddamn I miss the old 1.0 internet
« Reply #3 on: December 15, 2016, 09:36:40 AM »
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I do occasionally miss the old days of the internet. But I DON'T miss the loading times and dial-ups! That was all bulls**t, lol. I first got internet back in 97. And what was the first thing I used it for? Surfing around till I stumbled upon the Castlevania SotN soundtrack website  ;D
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Re: Goddamn I miss the old 1.0 internet
« Reply #4 on: December 17, 2016, 01:16:13 PM »
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The main thing the internet 1.0 had that today's net does not was that sense of discovery. I remember myself and others would just get on it and search for random things. "*Everything* has a website!" remember webrings? Those were fun!

That said, I would not go back to the days of 4 or 5 minute long load times (at 10 cents a minute, in pre-inflation 90s money) for simple pages with just text and jpegs, and maybe a midi tune and animated gifs if it was really fancy. I remember logging onto pages, loading them up, and then disconnecting from the net while I read them to save money. And everyone believed everything they read online to, which is how the Blair Witch Project raked in so much cash. "There's a website that says it's real, it's gotta be real!" oh we were such sweet summer children then.

The wild west analogy is one I've heard before and it is apt. We're all aging digital cowboys, as money and normies come in to gentrify all our digital spaces, there's nothing left of the wide open world we knew except our memories and rusted spurs.
« Last Edit: December 17, 2016, 01:19:30 PM by Ratty »

Offline Flame

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Re: Goddamn I miss the old 1.0 internet
« Reply #5 on: December 18, 2016, 09:36:15 AM »
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It was still "the internet", the difference is it's no longer just the internet. We are now in "the internet of things".

Where it's not just the computer that has internet connectivity. Wifi has allowed for EVERYTHING to have internet connectivity. From your mobile phone, to your car, and even your goddamned refrigerator.

We also entered, in the mid 00's, the era of social media.

We all remember how in the 90's and early 00's, the biggest piece of PSA advice you always got was "don't give out your personal info online."

We all remember, before paypal, that online shopping was sketchy at best because it required inputting your credit card information.

But then suddenly, Myspace, which was really just a space for edgy teens to upload emo music, led to Facebook. And suddenly, everyone was more than willing to divulge their life story on the internet. every detail of their lives. Then came twitter. And then Google bought Youtube. And now you can have a single unified account across all of the internet.

What was lost was the anonymity of the internet. what was basically just a tool and interface for use, (early internet was basically exclusively the domain of fandom and academia, with only a small smattering of online shopping for the adventurous) became the replacement for human interaction.

Sure, forums and BBSes existed back then, but the experience was different. There was a screen of anonymity, filtered through the default anonymity of the internet. On the internet, nobody knew who you were. All they knew was that you were LORD_OF_CHAOS with the yugioh avatar. That was your identity and the only thing anyone knew about you, and nobody really pretended to actually use online interaction for anything other than niche activities. much like a radio enthusiast talks with random people around the world just for the fun of it, internet socialization was "just for the fun of it"

But then it was made accessible to the unwashed masses through social media and Youtube. And the internet, formerly a wild wild west, became sanitized and consummerized. Social media put the rest of the internet out of business. Why bother making and maintaining a forum when you can just make a facebook fan page? Why bother keeping all of your online accounts separate when you can just log in with google.

Why bother having different media websites like YTMND and Newgrounds when you can just upload to youtube?

and Youtube itself, stopped being a free medium for posting videos as you saw fit, and became monetized. At first it was ok, you could posta nything do anything, if you wanted to make a living out of it, you had the bonus of getting some fancy privileges like a banner, and maybe an ad on the side of the page.

and yet here we are, fast forward 11 years after Youtube's going online, and it's become no different than the old fashioned medium it supposedly competes with. I go to youtube to escape commercials, and yet go to a popular video and there's at least 5 commercials that interrupt your programming.

And want to upload that music video you like so much? Not so fast, that's copyrighted!

However, another dark side is this: the Internet, and then social media, gave a voice to everyone. It gave voice to the voiceless. And that was great. You now had a greater say than you ever did.

But the dark reality is that some people don't deserve a voice. There's people who are silenced for good reason, and SHOULD not be heard. And those people got a voice too. And then those people were able to band together online. And together they were able to actually have an impact. Without the internet we would not have the social justice politically correct extreme left trend we have today. Where Facebook actively suppresses conservative points of view, and it's easy to blame election results on hackers. Or brand entire points of view as "hate speech" and therefore simply censor them. The internet is basically the only tool of social interaction and opinion that matters anymore, and if you are silenced on the internet, you no longer have much of a real voice anymore either, as your real voice no longer matters anymore.

TL;DR I miss the old internet too. It was a wild west of infinite potential, and now it's just become a cyberpunk nightmare, and I'm beginning to think that the internet was a mistake and If I could press a button and make the internet disappear forever, I wouldn't hesitate to push it, and I think Humanity would be better off without it.

/endrant
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Offline Ratty

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Re: Goddamn I miss the old 1.0 internet
« Reply #6 on: December 18, 2016, 09:56:12 AM »
+1
However, another dark side is this: the Internet, and then social media, gave a voice to everyone. It gave voice to the voiceless. And that was great. You now had a greater say than you ever did.

But the dark reality is that some people don't deserve a voice. There's people who are silenced for good reason, and SHOULD not be heard. And those people got a voice too. And then those people were able to band together online. And together they were able to actually have an impact. Without the internet we would not have the social justice politically correct extreme left trend we have today. Where Facebook actively suppresses conservative points of view, and it's easy to blame election results on hackers. Or brand entire points of view as "hate speech" and therefore simply censor them. The internet is basically the only tool of social interaction and opinion that matters anymore, and if you are silenced on the internet, you no longer have much of a real voice anymore either, as your real voice no longer matters anymore.

TL;DR I miss the old internet too. It was a wild west of infinite potential, and now it's just become a cyberpunk nightmare, and I'm beginning to think that the internet was a mistake and If I could press a button and make the internet disappear forever, I wouldn't hesitate to push it, and I think Humanity would be better off without it.

/endrant

The echo chamber effect is in full swing and it is dangerous. People on the right and the left no longer talk because why should they? Finding people who will reinforce your views is just a couple of clicks away, so why ever have those views challenged? Kids in college today have grown up in this environment to the point that they sometimes brand people disagreeing with them as an act of violence. Scary stuff. Having more and more radical views within your own sphere (right or left) becomes a contest and a status symbol. Any dissent is quickly crushed, with the fear of being cut off from your entire social structure/support group keeping people in line and further radicalizing them in one direction or the other.

Offline Mooning Freddy

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Re: Goddamn I miss the old 1.0 internet
« Reply #7 on: December 18, 2016, 10:36:32 AM »
+1
Free speech is a wonderful thing. It comes with a price, of course. It serves good just as well as evil.
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Re: Goddamn I miss the old 1.0 internet
« Reply #8 on: December 18, 2016, 03:32:57 PM »
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I certainly know how you feel. I have fond memories of the Good Old Days as well ;-;

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Offline zangetsu468

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Re: Goddamn I miss the old 1.0 internet
« Reply #9 on: December 18, 2016, 05:11:08 PM »
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Where it's not just the computer that has internet connectivity. Wifi has allowed for EVERYTHING to have internet connectivity. From your mobile phone, to your car, and even your goddamned refrigerator.

To be honest, this is the age of technology, I don't know about anyone else but I always had a feeling that online connectivity was going to become a thing. Just how big of a thing was anyone's guess.

What was lost was the anonymity of the internet. what was basically just a tool and interface for use, (early internet was basically exclusively the domain of fandom and academia, with only a small smattering of online shopping for the adventurous) became the replacement for human interaction.

This is one of the reasons I keep coming back to the CVD. One of my favourite things to do when I was a young pup after a long night of work, coming home and eating, then lifting weights (by which time it was around 1-2am) was surfing the internet. It was an adventure, and you never knew what the hell you were going to find. There was a sense of discovery which slowly started to dwindle with the advancement of youtube as well as other websites. I remember finding the websites about Barney and David Hasselhoff being the antichrist, and it really opened my eyes ;)

Sure, forums and BBSes existed back then, but the experience was different. There was a screen of anonymity, filtered through the default anonymity of the internet. On the internet, nobody knew who you were. All they knew was that you were LORD_OF_CHAOS with the yugioh avatar.
Haha much like the CVD, although these days we probably know one another better and add to the fact this seems to be a relatively small knit community.

My ICQ account used to read that I lived in the Bahamas... I did not (guilty as charged!)

And the internet, formerly a wild wild west, became sanitized and consummerized. Social media put the rest of the internet out of business. Why bother making and maintaining a forum when you can just make a facebook fan page? Why bother keeping all of your online accounts separate when you can just log in with google.

This is the age of technology, but it's fast becoming the age of consumerism.

The issue I see with the internet is that prior to everyone as you've said "having a voice" at the click of a button etc, a voice in the community and one's greater environment previously had to be earned, whether it be by communicating in person or via phone, travelling to meet with people, etc. Now opinions can be forged and petitions and voices can be cast at the click of a few buttons. Can't be bothered finishing something you were previously doing or a hobby you've been pursuing? No problem, just watch it on youtube. (The same applies to the porn industry) Invariably this sort of "one click laziness" will lead to social issues on a much larger scale. No wonder that mental illness is rampant in the western world, when things that required people to previously move their asses are now giving them excuses to play the voyeur first and achieve later.

The new internet is a place where being on your mobile device 24/7, being connected 24/7 and 'always being switched on' is acceptable. Gone are the days (mostly) where people left their belongings on the coffee table and went to dine at the dinner table. Our generation blames it on being "time poor", but in reality mobile technology has introduced social instruments (/issues) that actually take up more of our time than what we would've been doing otherwise i.e. spending time with loved ones, having conversations, just being and doing the things we loved. There's now a diminishing sense of value even in sentimental objects, because everything is on God-damned iCloud.

I once read a post on a Zelda forum that a gamer got frustrated with the final boss of Skyward Sword, decided he had enough and just youtubed the ending. That to me as a gamer is very sad, there's no sense of accomplishment, there's no sense of achievment, and there's no sense of pride.

But all is not lost. We're all guilty of indulging in things at different times in our lives. so long as the individual can recognise and adjust their ways accordingly, then all will not be lost.
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Offline Flame

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Re: Goddamn I miss the old 1.0 internet
« Reply #10 on: December 18, 2016, 05:52:03 PM »
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This is the age of technology, but it's fast becoming the age of consumerism.
it's been the age of consumerism for a long time. Arguably since the 50's and 60's. Definitely since the 80's and 90's.

Quote
The issue I see with the internet is that prior to everyone as you've said "having a voice" at the click of a button etc, a voice in the community and one's greater environment previously had to be earned, whether it be by communicating in person or via phone, travelling to meet with people, etc.
well even within online communities. you built up your reputation. you started as a nobody and if you were lucky and involved, became a valued member of the community. thats something thats been lost with modern social media. I guess, strangely enough, anonymous internet actually functioned much more like real life than current "social" internet. Funny how that works.


Quote
Now opinions can be forged and petitions and voices can be cast at the click of a few buttons. Can't be bothered finishing something you were previously doing or a hobby you've been pursuing? No problem, just watch it on youtube. (The same applies to the porn industry) Invariably this sort of "one click laziness" will lead to social issues on a much larger scale.
Well it does affect our attention spans. It actually shocks me when i sit down to watch a movie I haven't watched in a while, maybe lets say, an 80s or 90's movie, and I start getting antsy, I need to be doing something simultaneously. if im watching a video on youtube I realize im also posting on a forum.

it's scary honestly.


Quote
No wonder that mental illness is rampant in the western world, when things that required people to previously move their asses are now giving them excuses to play the voyeur first and achieve later.
I would argue Mental illness isnt the result of the internet, (though it doesnt help) but the trend that started in the 90's of self medication. depressed? take pills. feeling tired? take pills. And the worst:
your kid can't sit still in his overcrowded classroom? GIVE HIM PILLS. JUST GIVE JIMMY SOME RITALIN, THAT'll SET 'IM STRAIGHT.
the 90's were the era of "ADD/ADHD". any kid who was fidgety in class and overly energetic was hyperactive or had ADHD and NEEDED pills for it.

which has caused a whole generation of problem children because their brains are fucked up from having basically been on drugs during their childhood. Mom and dad couldnt deal with the stress of trying to keep tabs on billy's whereabouts outside, so they just give him some pills and sit him in front of the tv for 5 hours.

Quote
The new internet is a place where being on your mobile device 24/7, being connected 24/7 and 'always being switched on' is acceptable. Gone are the days (mostly) where people left their belongings on the coffee table and went to dine at the dinner table.
holy shit this. my biggest pet peeve is the social norm that its ok to always be on your phone even when you are having a conversation or eating dinner.

 
Quote
Our generation blames it on being "time poor", but in reality mobile technology has introduced social instruments (/issues) that actually take up more of our time than what we would've been doing otherwise i.e. spending time with loved ones, having conversations, just being and doing the things we loved. There's now a diminishing sense of value even in sentimental objects, because everything is on God-damned iCloud.
all good things in moderation, they say. internet and tech was nice, when we maybe browsed the web for an hour or two a day and had to wait 15 minutes for a picture to download, but with instant access, the internet has become a skinner's box. Instant gratification if we "press the button"

Quote
I once read a post on a Zelda forum that a gamer got frustrated with the final boss of Skyward Sword, decided he had enough and just youtubed the ending. That to me as a gamer is very sad, there's no sense of accomplishment, there's no sense of achievment, and there's no sense of pride.
I read a thing about how X percentage of gamers will never finish the game they are playing. And then it dawned on me ive got a bunch of steam games I never bothered to go back to.

Quote
But all is not lost. We're all guilty of indulging in things at different times in our lives. so long as the individual can recognise and adjust their ways accordingly, then all will not be lost.
sometimes I hope that some day there will be a luddite counter culture movement. sort of like how conservative generations breed liberal generations and vice versa, I sort of hope some day there might be a generation that decides it doesnt want to be always online always connected.

I mean, even within the millennial generation there are many that reject that idea and get flipphones instead of smartphones.
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Offline zangetsu468

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Re: Goddamn I miss the old 1.0 internet
« Reply #11 on: December 18, 2016, 06:55:38 PM »
0
it's been the age of consumerism for a long time. Arguably since the 50's and 60's. Definitely since the 80's and 90's.
well even within online communities. you built up your reputation. you started as a nobody and if you were lucky and involved, became a valued member of the community. thats something thats been lost with modern social media. I guess, strangely enough, anonymous internet actually functioned much more like real life than current "social" internet. Funny how that works.

I guess when there a no pre-associations with a person (a situation where it's not fb) this is where everyone starts from scratch and it becomes evident very quickly about who is 'real' and who cares about the communities that they're in.

Well it does affect our attention spans. It actually shocks me when i sit down to watch a movie I haven't watched in a while, maybe lets say, an 80s or 90's movie, and I start getting antsy, I need to be doing something simultaneously. if im watching a video on youtube I realize im also posting on a forum.

it's scary honestly.

I'm a bit like that, more so if I've been sitting at the dinner table for a while. I have to actually resist playing with my phone. But I've always been someone who has to do things, I've always tried to maximise my time, so it may just be a personal thing in that sense with me.

I would argue Mental illness isnt the result of the internet, (though it doesnt help) but the trend that started in the 90's of self medication. depressed? take pills. feeling tired? take pills. And the worst:
your kid can't sit still in his overcrowded classroom? GIVE HIM PILLS. JUST GIVE JIMMY SOME RITALIN, THAT'll SET 'IM STRAIGHT.
the 90's were the era of "ADD/ADHD". any kid who was fidgety in class and overly energetic was hyperactive or had ADHD and NEEDED pills for it.

which has caused a whole generation of problem children because their brains are fucked up from having basically been on drugs during their childhood. Mom and dad couldn't deal with the stress of trying to keep tabs on billy's whereabouts outside, so they just give him some pills and sit him in front of the tv for 5 hours.

I think the problem is the internet's wealth of information has led to self-diagnosis and looking for silver bullet cures.
However it can work the other way, I once had a family member who didn't want to visit hospital, with no other choice I googled their symptoms, looked to about 4 webpages and ended up diagnosing them correctly. Needless to say they agreed to go to hospital after they saw the information on a medical website written in black and white. Though I admit this was a once in a blue moon type of scenario, still it helped.

The internet/ pc generation is a funny thing though. Because PC's are associated with work, education or homework nobody ever says "get off the pc" these days, yet back in my childhood if you watched tv for too long your parents
would tell you to go outside and run around.

It's sad because I have a friend who is depressed, he's a normal guy, quite social, knows a lot of people, his female friends were hot back in uni days, he worked for 5 years post-graduating. Now he stays at home and sits online all day watching Twitch streams and sleeps at really odd hours to avoid holding down a real job. Luckily he still has the support of his family. I strongly believe that 95% of his depression is aided by him having a kick ass PC (his tower is as big as my oven) and having "everything he needs" in one room - mostly in that tower. It's so crazy to me, because a long time ago he wanted the things most people want in life, now it's almost like he's just 'viewing life' 99% of the time and no longer cares about attainment, what others think of him, actually the only people he cares about appeasing are his online friends from other countries (part of the reason why he sleeps at crazy hours).

holy shit this. my biggest pet peeve is the social norm that its ok to always be on your phone even when you are having a conversation or eating dinner.

I think it's dependent upon context. My partner and I both use our phones at the dinner table when we're having dinner, but we're not putting our conversation 2nd to our devices and it's all about the conversation. However, when we're with family, or even friends we put that shit away because other people are there trying to speak with us and may feel a certain way, particularly the older generation. 

all good things in moderation, they say. internet and tech was nice, when we maybe browsed the web for an hour or two a day and had to wait 15 minutes for a picture to download, but with instant access, the internet has become a skinner's box. Instant gratification if we "press the button"

I think slower internet was more satisfying in the sense that if you downloaded something large, you had to put the hours into monitoring that download, keeping other people off the phone (unless you had a separate line) etc. Downloading a movie was like scaling Everest, and you had to know where/ how to look. 

I think that the more 'anonymous' dial-up internet taught me a thing or two about people. Sometimes talking to someone you don't know with an absence of audible tone and visible body language can assist in sharpening your social and/ or literary skills. Not only do you have to think on your feet, but you also have to type as your ideas are forming which can be half the challenge/ benefit. I think the last place this now exists would be online networking/ dating sites (Tinder not inclusive if you're just swiping yes/no - not that I've personally used it).

My motto is if it's the internet that's making you get up off your ass and do something or interact with people, then it's a good use of the internet,

I mean, even within the millennial generation there are many that reject that idea and get flipphones instead of smartphones.

That's nice, I miss the Motorolla RazR.. I lost mine on a drunken galavant, NOT surfing the web ;)
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Offline Flame

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Re: Goddamn I miss the old 1.0 internet
« Reply #12 on: December 18, 2016, 09:23:31 PM »
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Quote
I think it's dependent upon context. My partner and I both use our phones at the dinner table when we're having dinner, but we're not putting our conversation 2nd to our devices and it's all about the conversation.

See for example I can't deal with that. I saw an interview on PBS some time ago, that talked about how the art of conversation has really degraded thanks to smartphones. And they went into detail about how even just merely having the phone on the table, changes the conversation. it changes the mood. it's like a radioactive substance that affects everything around it, even if it isn't being used. Because it's clear that part of both people's attentions are on that phone sitting on the table.

Quote
That's nice, I miss the Motorolla RazR.. I lost mine on a drunken galavant, NOT surfing the web
When my Android died, I realized how glued to it I was so I got a Razr on ebay and registered it with AT&T.

I still have internet on it though. Although the internet as it is today isnt entirely fliphone friendly, so theres a limit to what i can do, but its handy for googling.

I don't miss my smartphone. If I can't do it on the phone then I probably dont need to do it at that moment and it can wait. I can still make calls and text, and thats all I need.
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Offline JR

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Re: Goddamn I miss the old 1.0 internet
« Reply #13 on: December 18, 2016, 10:28:42 PM »
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Man, this thread kind of bummed me out. I didn't realize how much I missed the wonder and discovery of the internet. Other than this place and the RajahWWF forums, I never had a set schedule (per se) when I went online. It was always something new, always fun, and always interesting.

Now getting online bores the shit out of me half the time. I check email and Facebook, look to see if there's any new videos on youtube (where every channel seems to have diminishing returns), read a few posts on reddit, and not much else. I rarely ever look for new music anymore...something which used to be very important and exciting to me, but I usually don't get the itch to do it anymore.

But the internet is still my "go to" source of entertainment. It's just so easy to get on the computer compared to trying to figure out which video game I want to start playing (is it sad that I've amassed a big collection of games over the years, yet find myself procrastinating to play any of them?). I'm slowly realizing that just picking up a game off the shelf, reading a comic, watching an anime, etc., is way more enjoyable than just farting around on the internet with no particular goal in mind. (I swear, if it wasn't for my job and exercise keeping me in line, I'd be one lazy son of a bitch!  :-X)
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Offline Shiroi Koumori

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Re: Goddamn I miss the old 1.0 internet
« Reply #14 on: December 19, 2016, 12:21:21 AM »
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I mean, even within the millennial generation there are many that reject that idea and get flipphones instead of smartphones.

All hail the flip phone! My Sony Ericsson W710i is still going strong, even if I already scotch-taped the top panel due to the rubber parts falling off. My students are in awe of this phone.

Will there be a return to the flip phones? I kinda wished I bought the panasonic one that looks like a compact makeup case 10 years ago...

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