What did you do before the Internet?

Post Reply New Topic

It seems I often find that one of the biggest AS stereotypes is that we spend way too much time on the Internet (one thing I'm guilty of for certain). Having just recently watched Dazed and Confused again, I see that there apparently was a lot more partying and less fettering back in the old days, however, I was born in 1990, so any notion of that sort of thing was rendered moot during my high school years. It seems that most kids these days are kept on a long leash, and they're not allowed to be as wild and free as generations that came before them. This is a question for the older generation of Aspies, the people who grew up before the age of the Internet, digital cable and carseats for 10-year-olds. What kinds of things did you, being children of a different breed, do for fun before the Internet came and sucked up the lives of many young people?

I played outside, watched TV, played with my dolls and my brothers toys, BRIO tracks, watched movies, played games, read, listened to my tapes, played video games and on the computer.

Read books, watched TV, watched movies, listened to music, browsed at music and book stores, played music, hung out at the library, rode my bicycle (I used to do BMX/freestyle/streetstyle, but I sucked at it), studied/did homework, occassionally went to the archery range. You know, the usual stuff.

Hung out with the other neighborhood kids that I'd known since first grade-sneaked out, went for country drives and got stoned, read, was often incredibly bored and unhappy on weekends.

When I was young I played legos GI Joes, and played in the field next door. As a teenager I rode my bike alot and played computer games.

Lots of TV.

I was really into reading books outside. Everyday I would go outside and read.

I dunno. Before the internet was so traumatic I've blocked it out...

Ok more seriously: I read voraciously. I still do read a lot but now it is mostly online or ebooks so I guess not much has changed just the medium. However, the internet has massively assisted me being able to pursue my interests and find other like minded people.

Well I started using the internet at 2000 but I didn't use it regularly until about 2005. Before I just played and watched telly and drew and even hung out with the kids in the area until about 2004 when I moved house.

"What did you do before the Internet?"

Sat 'round the cave beating each other with clubs and hitting stones together trying to make fire.

Actually, pre-Internet we kept in touch through a lot more snail mail. Something may be lost there I fear. As I've inherited the stack of a hundred years (literally) of family letters, birth announcements, newspaper clippings and postcards from my Mom's genealogy project, I wonder how much future generations will be missing out now that most of our vital correspondence is email that gets deleted right away.

I used to read a lot more books than I do now. Nowadays I still read a lot, but I tend to read either when the internet is unavailable (at school, etc), or I read a book while simultaneously doing something online (right now I'm posting this on WP while reading George Orwell's "Homage To Catalonia"). But pre-Internet, I would just sit in my room reading a book, with no other distractions.

Born in 1991, started using AOL (which was at the time on the world wide web) when I was 6, so in 1997.

Before we got internet access at home I spent a lot of time making films. They weren't long or really any good, I just walked around and documented everyday things like my pets sleeping, the garden or my mum cooking dinner. Then I used to take the video out (yes, it was one of those old cameras that you used to put videos into!) and watch it on the TV. That was my after school entertainment for probably 2-3 years.

When I was young, I never needed the internet. I instead played games, watched TV and went outside like most kids do.

I did a lot of drawing, painting and sculpting. In fact, it's probably bad that I'm obsessed with the net since these things gave me a sense of accomlishment.

I also and still do....love nature and being around plants and wildlife. Not something I hear much about from aspies or auties. Gardening still is a big hobby of mine.

Other obsessions were some TV shows like Stargate, Indiana Jones, Lexx, Star Trek..heh, Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, History Channel, Egyptology, Mythology, and lot's and lot's of music!!

There's a lot more but I think you get my drift. I lived in solitude so yeah....I've had to entertain myself...


NOTE: That even though I was a child then, a quarter of my life has been the internet generation. It just wasn't as complex with sites such as this and other means of communicating other then email like it is now. I was also very stubborn in interacting besides looking up stuff for my homework. Thank god for Google and sites like this as well as facebook, MySpace, Blog and so on....even though I'm not a big fan of the 2 out of 3!!

TV, video games (Atari and original NES), play outside with friends and the dog