Editing 1348: Before the Internet

{{comic
| number    = 1348
| date      = March 28, 2014
| title     = Before the Internet
| image     = before_the_internet.png
| titletext = We watched DAYTIME TV. Do you realize how soul-crushing it was? I'd rather eat an iPad than go back to watching daytime TV.
}}

==Explanation==
A young [[Ponytail]] asks [[Megan]] what life was like before the Internet. The girl, obviously, was born after the Internet was invented, became widely known about and/or attained its current level of ubiquity. (Those milestones are spread wide, and are often confused with each other. A young child of indeterminate age, in 2014, might ''possibly'' have been born slightly before the latter became all but indisputed, but without much memory of it.) Megan responds that life was very boring without computers or mobile phones. This comic appears to be a parody of the common complaint — often done by elder people — that life was better and more fulfilling in the "good old days", in that there weren't so many distractions and people could actually get things done that were meaningful. The ages switch roles with the younger character being prepared to believe that life was more fulfilling before technology, and the elder rejecting the proposition.

To Megan, even a more fulfilling and engaging life "wasn't worth" the price of what it meant to be bored in the days before smartphones and computers that could go online. Even though the ponytail girl says that she still experiences boredom in spite of having advanced technology to occupy her, Megan assures her that her version of boredom is nothing like what those in the pre-Internet days had to endure. Again, this is a reversal of the typical exchange in which a young person tries to insist that they still have social contact/get out and about/do worthwhile things in their spare time, and the elder person responds, "Not like we did."

The title text continues in this vein as Megan talks about what people in her day resorted to doing when they were bored, for lack of anything better to do: they watched {{w|daytime TV}}. Daytime television consisted mainly of soap operas, talk shows, game shows, infomercials and children's programming and is notorious for being, in Megan's words, "soul-crushing". To round off the comparison, Megan uses a modern-day metaphor to express her extreme distaste for daytime television, saying that she would rather "eat an iPad" than go through that again. In other words, modern-day gadgets are so much better that she'd still have more fun if she were eating them than if she had to go without them. Alternatively, it could be to emphasize how unpleasant daytime TV is; eating an iPad would likely be unpleasant (e.g. it is too large to easily be swallowed whole and too hard to easily be bitten into parts), and it could poison her or give her an internal electrical or battery fire. Saying that she would rather eat an iPad would also be a powerful statement because Megan would not be able to watch movies, play games, read the news, etc… on that iPad after eating it{{Citation needed}} (although she could just buy another iPad—at least if she survives the battery of the iPad that she ate leaking and/or exploding and other hazards associated with eating an iPad).

Megan might just be {{tvtropes|TheDungAges|responding with the opposite of}} what {{tvtropes|YeGoodeOldeDays|she's expected to say}} in this dialogue in order to mess with the younger girl. In reality, life was neither likely to be noticeably more fulfilling or noticeably more boring without technology: it was just life. People are equally capable of wasting their time and of doing worthwhile things regardless of what age they live in, and those who wax nostalgic about an older, better time are liable to forget that. This recalls the {{w|Hedonic treadmill}} theory which states that people will always be at roughly the same level of happiness regardless of positive or negative events or technological advances in civilization.

==Transcript==
:[Young girl talking to Megan, both holding smartphones.] 
:Girl: Do you remember before the internet?
:Megan: Oh yeah, totally.
:Girl: what was it like?
:Megan: Not having a phone or computer to distract you?
:Girl: Yeah.
:Megan: It was '''''SO. BORING.''''' All the time. I just '''''sat''''' there. It was the '''''worst.'''''
:Girl: But wasn't it, like, more fulfilling? Engaging?
:Megan: Wasn't worth it.
:Girl: ''I'' still get bored.
:Megan: Not like we did.
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Smartphones]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]