Do you wish to go back to the pre-social networking/ FB internet days ?

Remember back when the internet was simpler -- there was geocities, altavista, amazon was just a baby site, the dot-com bubble brought a bunch of crap. Then google emerged, worked awesomely, and was just an infant

But the key point is that we were all on the internet, using most of the functions we use today, but with the addition of alot more privacy. There wasn't facebook, where you can stalk your "friends" or met-twice acquaintances, or they could stalk you. Even in this day, if you don't have facebook, your photo could still show up (not like I care, but still..); if it shows up, your extended social circle(s) would most likely see it and know what you are doing.

So do you wish you had this "on-demand" access to your friends/acquaintances, even just to know what they are sharing? Or back to the olden days of the internets ?

 

Mmm, I do miss setting up/using a BBS with my friends in middle school. Very secret agent.

I was also a fan of UUEncode... posting garble on a Usenet page and turning it into data? Gnarly.

But I don't miss how long it took to download Doom shareware using a 9600 baud modem.

Oh, is that too far back?

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The privacy thing is only a concern to those who actually participate. I don't have a Facebook.

As long as I make sure my woman isn't posting stupid pictures of me, it's like I don't exist.

Even without Facebook, there are a plethora of dummy-friendly utilities to stalk people with.

Running periodic checks on yourself is a good way of making sure your digital zipper is up.

...

I tend to see Facebook as an extended back-up cellphone contacts list that you can search.

 

I generally share with people according to need-to-know criteria, or if in a group, then with well established boundy conditions. Perhaps even to my detriment, I do not like self-advertising, and even before the internet became uber-accessble, identified and avoided people whose conversation was spammy.

I'm taking inventory here, Ejkwt. Online shopping. Email. Message-board style forums like this. Realtime messaging. Check.
OK ... add today's bandwidth and speed = video calling, and that'd be enough for me.

 

I just want to hear this sound again every day:

 

I don't miss it any more than I miss pre-cable television.

 

Purely in a nostalgic sense, I miss it but don't need to go back to it.

I do think the younger generation needs to complete a technological rite of passage similar to the one my generation went through. Let the kids go through a dark ages of sorts as they're growing up, make them earn their right for space on the Internets just like we did. By this I mean I'm sick of seeing toddlers playing with iPads and twelve year olds with cell phones and shit. That stuff just messes with my head.

Hey you kids, get off my lawn! /crotchety

 

I have an employer that cares and checks on that shit. I just don't play in social networking.

I see plenty of good and plenty of stupid in it. Watching a co-worker get escorted out of the building and another get divorced because of Facebook posts makes me believe that the privacy I'd need isn't there. It also seems a bit high school cliquish to me from the outside, I didn't do that in high school, no reason to start now.

 

a thousand times yes!

 

Sometimes, I liked it when the internet was like the back-alley bar that people went into but no one every admitted to it. I remember it being a badge of honor among my friends when I setup my pc to shotgun two modems together and get TWICE THE BANDWIDTH from the local ISP.

I have a love/hate relationship with facebook. I was a hardcore hater of facebook, til I found it was easier to keep up with friends on there and made my number of "how you doing" phone calls go down by half. Really, my facebook is just like an extension of TFP. 3/4 of my friends on there are TFPers.

Stan, I think people like that are going to cheat or get fired anyway, facebook just makes it easier to catch them because well... stupid is as stupid does. The privacy is there, people just don't think about it.

Thank GOD I have a *very* common name and when you search for it, I don't even show up. Apparently there are a few doctors in my town with the same name. Pushes my name down that list. I also make sure that no one can access my stuff from outside, I check that at least once a week.

 

I still don't do facebook.

or twitter..

or myspace..

 

I was under the impression that privacy was something you got from not using social media.

If you're posting something online that could get you fired or divorced, it's you, not the site.

 

This is true, if you don't want the world to see it, don't post it on the internet.

Then again, if people listened to that, there wouldn't be websites dedicated to "These pictures are only for you, cause I love you" camshots.

 

and the internet would be a MUCH MUCH sadder place to roam

 

Lordeden,

Sure there would. It's called a revenge. Or at least the spineless dirtbag version of it.

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The US Army actually has infomercials with the slogan "Post it Once, Live with it Forever."

 

I wouldn't be in touch with half of the people I am if it wasn't for social media sites. So, no, I like where it's at, I could do without Twitter though.... no one cares what people are doing every 5 minutes in 140 words or less.

 

I remember having to dial up my 1200 baud modem on my spiffy new 486sx home computer to NCSU's system to search all of ftp space with archie and veronica. No fancy web browsing for me. I don't miss the speed so much, as the fact that if you "met" someone online, they were usually intelligent, or they wouldn't have been able to get there. Nowadays, any idiot can do it, and that makes me long for the old days, somewhat. Yeah, I'm an elitist

 

This. But for me, its more out of a sense of jealousy. I remember back in the day when I installed Linux, I had trouble just getting it working with my video card, sound card, etc etc. Nowadays.. well, Linux is just AWESOME. Nowadays, when you have Linux/IT/coding trouble, just type in the question into google, and within the first page there's an answer. Back in the day.. well.. it was really hard to find the answers.

Especially this. Back in the day, the internet was more of a wild west, but full of smart people. Nowadays, you find too much shit everywhere. Ironically, the shittier it is now because of the unwashed masses, the "tidier" it is -- you mostly just jump from one "I-made-it-big-blog" to another, Amazon to newegg, Wikipedia, Google, Facebook -- that's about it. Back then, when you had to research something.. man, you REALLY researched it -- you searched altavista, hotbot, excite, (even including google) and combed through pages and pages of geocities, random ISP hosted sites, etc. Information was much more loosely connected, harder to find, and you needed to collate it yourself.

 

I *like* that is easier to find answer to my stupid tech questions. Still, there are the curly ones that you spend literally hours on google looking way past the initial few pages to find your exact problem.

It still amazes me how dumb people are - hoax emails and posts on facebook that you just have to forward to everyone - how dumb can you get?

 

I showed something similar to my son the other day (your clip was WAY better!), he was fascinated. He was also fascinated when I finally started putting all my pictures into albums and he ran across rolls of film. He had no idea what the rolls were. He's 9 and has never known anything but DSL, digital cameras, and cell phones that take pictures and send texts.

As for me, I enjoy being able to find a quick solution when I'm working in Excel and get an error message and need some help. I have taught myself to crochet via youtube tutorials. When I was taking college algebra, I frequented online help sites when something stumped me. Facebook has helped me reconnect with extended family and helped me build relationships that didn't previously exist, or get in contact with the few old friends that I still give a damn about, but lost touch with in college when we quit writing real letters to each other. However, Facebook is also a great outlet for attention whores to...well, whore themselves. It's a double edged sword.