Talk:1348: Before the Internet

I'm pretty sure that Randall doesn't make this mistake, but "Before the Internet" and "Before the Web" are two very different things in a way that old fogeys like myself (and him) tend to mutter on about when anyone younger than maybe 40 make the mistake of conflating the two. If that's Exploit Mom, she'd probably be too young to really know times pre-Internet in the truest sense. (Although "before the layperson knew about the Internet" could be placed somewhere in the mid-to-late '90s, which is after the early '90s inception of the Web.) Enough pedantry. Someone needs to make a more useful comment than the above, and quickly! 141.101.89.211 06:00, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

The person asking the question is a child-character. The adult-character then followed up with a clarification question "[Do you mean] not having a phone or computer to distract you?". Though, in your "truest sense", "before the Internet" and "the first decade or so of the Internet" would be mostly the same. The Internet didn't have much of an impact on or value to society until after it reached a certain size.[1] 108.162.237.64 07:15, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I read a lot. Before the internet was cheap, I would go to the library on my bike, borrow 5 books (the limit), read them all and go to the library again. On a good weekend day I could repeat this 3 or 4 times. Some books I've read thousands of times. Relevant irrelevant comment108.162.218.41 07:18, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Does this comic even need explaining? Pretty self-explanatory of you ask me. —108.162.210.237 08:04, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I think some sort of explanation relating to why this is funny. It is sort of the opposite of the standard nostalgia. Rather like our parents generation may have had a similar discussion with their parents about the invention of TV (add a generation if you are too young). When you think about it, it is a bit odd how society is keen to develop tech to make things better, and at the same time declare that things were better in the past. We sometimes get quite good expositions on this sort of thing here... hopefully someone with some sociology/psychology knowledge can explain this a bit better.