Question of the Day, Friday, May 24

Good morning!

Remember what it was like before we had the internet? No chat rooms, no forums, no streaming, no email.

How did you spend your free time before the advent of the internet? Did you read more often, watch tv more often? What did you do?

Thinking back, I probably read more books than I do now, even though I'm still a voracious reader. Even though we had a computer, it was still several years after we got our first computer that we got on the internet....I'm thinking it was after I came home from doing my internship for college....before that I know we didn't weren't on the net. I used the computer for homework (writing papers and such) and I did a lot of graphics work even back then, but it was for print, not web.

I still find it amazing (and wonderful) that my best friends are people I "met" first on the web. One lives in Connecticut (and she is just an awesome woman), another lives in Texas (and I love her to death). I had the good fortune to not just meet them, but to actually spend time with these women and get to know them, shop with them, cook with them. Talk on the phone, visit, commiserate with each other when our cats went to the Bridge, and so on. I can't imagine my life without either one of these women in it. I just can't. I have really good friends locally, too, of course, but I feel blessed to have certain people in my life and these are two people who I never would have known without the internet.

There are others, too, who I know just from this forum or that forum. I've talked on the phone with them, but never met them. Yet, I consider them friends.

Reading books while watching TV. Some people can't do both at the same time. I can.

I'm watching a stupid movie and typing this post.

I've been on the internet since 1984, when I was going to university. I had access at work and got my first home computer a few years later (a used Macintosh SE with a dial-up modem). I can't think of what the internet "replaced" I guess since I've mostly used it for work and school work.

Forums were called "newsgroups" back then, and there were no images or colours on the screen, only text. 

I was very involved in horse training/competition. Most of my friends were involved with horses too.

I had the dubious pleasure of using DARPANet in 1972. It sent at 10 characters per second, instead of 100,000 like now for a fairly slow DSL. Before the internet, I read books and watched TV about the same, but got outside a lot more than now. Of  course, I was 20 years younger then.

:lol3: Great question. Actually, the question for me would be "before TCS" :lol3:. I have only recently found my way to the internet. I was rarely on a computer before TCS other than email. Before that I was a dressage horse trainer for 25 years! I certainly do miss the horses and think of it almost daily. I am taking a much needed break though. The hours were never "regular" and had to work almost everyday of the week. Horses don't know holidays either. They still need tending too.

Larry and I have decided to put away our computers at night a couple of hours before bed. It was getting out of hand with both of us on-line when we really should be spending some together even if it is watching a program on TV.

I remember when we were kids. All we did was play outside with friends and went everywhere on our bikes. I think today too many kids spend all of their on either the internet, their phones or those hand-held computer games getting no exercise and missing out on all of those fun social games with friends. :slant:

I rode dressage! I did 3 day eventing, actually. I think of it often, but I don't know if I'll ever go back.

I did genealogy. That involved spending hours at the courthouses and traipsing around in graveyards.

I read more. :nod:

I used to ride bikes and horses most weekends and it does seem I used to be a bit more productive mon - Fri than I am now. I spend more time on the computer when I have less money to go out and spend staying busy and doing new things.

I played video games on my nintendo systems. and actually went out with friends. and studied in school. what a life I led!

I was a kid; so I went outside!    I played with the kids in the neighborhood, read a lot (still do), rode my bike and played with my cats.