Can you remember what your life was like before you discovered the internet, and how you were introduced to it? What sort of things did you do before that fateful day when you joined the World Wide Web? Did you ever have restricted access when you were younger? Do you remember dialup?
I always remember there being a computer in the house, it just had really bad internet and no one used it for internet purposes- it was for taxes and the super rare computer game (all via disks, nothing downloaded). I was often bored, using all the paper in the house to draw and write until I got a playstation when I was around 6. Then I turned to video games. It wasn't until I was 13 that I was introduced to forums thanks to my cousin, and started to delve more into the internet. My parents told me what was and wasn't ok, but they weren't breathing over my shoulder over where I was at. We had dial up until I was 14-15 and getting into highschool, and had cruddy internet connections until my senior year when we got a new provider. (for timeline sake, I started my online adventures in 2010, got rid of dial up in 2011-2012, and got the internet I have now at 2014-2015)
Before I came online, like now, I was an artist and writer with a passion to make people proud. I remember being so carefree but ignorant, often ignoring people's personal problems because of how selfish I was. After coming online, I began to realize that there was more to the world than the voice inside my head that told me what to do. At least I've grown up since then and understand even more than before. I think this began when I was 12, so not that long ago now. Just a few years. But before then, the only internet I had ever seen was the rare computer in the computer labs that we used for testing. The only phone I had ever seen was a Blackberry, but I didn't even know about the internet when I saw it. Heck, I didn't even know about the news. I think I learned of it by one of my friends, who introduced me to YouTube in...2015? I can't remember. So, that's all I can really remember. I don't even think I ever heard dialup before. Doesn't sound familiar...
When I was super young, my family had a computer with no internet access. Before too long, we got internet, which opened me up to the wonderful, wacky world-wide web. I didn't really start exploring it until I was a teenager, due to the restriction my parents put on the computers and on my personally. I used computers almost entirely for disc games.
I honestly didn't start using the net much till I was 13-14, so around 2003, so I have a lot of memories. Had a younger neighbor I'd play with a lot, like either outside or video games, or i'd hang out with schoolmates. I'd say it was when my depression became more apparent that I started to seclude myself.
I just played Xbox with my 3 siblings before we had internet. When we did, on my dad's computer I would always play Star Wars Battlefront II. (2005) I also played Minecraft on it with my dad's roommate, who payed rent every month. They were good friends, and my father owned the house, so he gave a lower fee than apartments for him to live with us. He was a really cool dude named Chris, and I think he worked at a movie theatre or something. I miss him and my father, both of whom I haven't seen in I think 8 years now.
For a while, at least until I hit middle school (which I didn't know what a meme was until High school), the only time that I was allowed to be on a computer was in the computer lab at school and we didn't do much of anything on the internet. Once I really discovered what I could do on the internet, and had the freedom to do what I wanted on it, I was basically a different person.
I hadn't touched the internet until I was in the middle of High School. I primarily entertained myself with legs and various console games until one day, my parents got a new Ipad and they gave me their old IPad Mini. Still have that mini to and probably one of the only people who use the IPad mini. Even though I had access to the internet, I never left Youtube. I only went to brows sites once I had my own computer in late High School.
My parents purposefully did not let me use a computer until I was five. This was to prevent me from being one of those kids that got hooked on technology as an infant. I picked up on typing pretty quickly and ended up browsing Nick Jr. and PBS quite frequently. Before the internet, I spent most of my time playing with Thomas the Tank Engine sets or watching TV. I was too young to read at that point and the weather I’m that part of Oregon was too rainy.
I was six when I was introduced to a computer for the first time; a Compaq desktop my dad bought that eventually, he gave to my mom and me. My generation is pretty much the last one not to have the threat of childhood technology addiction because there wasn't a lot of it. Even the internet was still in its infancy and you guessed it, good ole dial-up. While it fascinated me and I enjoyed playing minesweeper and different interactive storybook games (i.e: https://lionking.fandom.com/wiki/Disney's_Animated_Storybook:_The_Lion_King), I preferred to spend my time during my childhood playing either with my toys, mostly my stuffed animals or with other children. Despite being an only child, between daycare, moving around to several apartment complexes and school I had plenty of friends/casual playmates as well as excuses to play outside and/or be physically active. Even alone, I was quite able to stimulate myself with my imagination. I'd interact with my stuffed animals, draw and even write stories, that's right by hand. My family was also content to play board games with me. There was even a period where I'd have my mom take me out to the grass area in the front of the complex we were currently living in where I'd either toss around a ball or engage in a favorite daycare activity, looking for rolly-pollies in the dirt edges of the grass. It was at thirteen was that I was introduced to the internet. It was at this time when I lost a lot of exposure to other children outside of school as my elementary school graduation was the end of my daycare days. Instead, I was left home alone when not in school starting with the summer before I began middle school. I could still stimulate myself just fine but it now had to be with indoor activities. So here I am in 7th grade, same grade in which I first got into Pokémon. The school had stuck me in the choir as my elective despite that it was literally my last choice as we actually had to select our electives in order of our desire. I wasn't comfortable singing so I had the school transfer me into a computer class which turned out was essentially just free internet time. My first fetishes were email and creating webpages using platforms such as Homestead and Maxpages. I once had a whole website at Maxpages dedicated to Pokémon; glitches, Gameshark codes, the anime and the likes. I was quite proud of it. I expanded my internet use to at home. Naturally, I did have something of a time limit it being the AO-Hell days and I still had friends so it didn't consume my time and provide as much of my stimulation as it sadly does now. From there my interests began to grow with my internet use. Once my best friend's family finally got the internet my endeavors expanded to essentially RPing with her over AOL IM and AIM and is when I got onto my first forum, a Harry Potter themed one my best friend had been into. Ironically that was the only one I've ever heard of her using. My junior or perhaps senior year of high school is when I'd first gotten into writing fanfiction through a Full House themed forum. That ended badly but I bounced back. It's just kept going.
