For me it was mostly a social experience. It was all about posting on the forums, which were largely just about chatting at the time. There were some specific f

For me it was mostly a social experience. It was all about posting on the forums, which were largely just about chatting at the time. There were some specific focused topics, but most were general and were people meeting people. Because of long distance phone charges, the vast majority of people on a given board were local to that board. In my city we had regular parties and meetups, so online friends frequently became real life friends. I'm currently working on a project with a friend I made in the early 80s on a bbs, so those connections could definitely last. Come to think of it, another of my current projects is a direct result of another connection from that era. One thing I don't see mentioned muc was that there was a lot of sex-driven bbs's. Maybe that was just my region. But many of the adults were swingers and/or bdsm aficionados. They'd be at the parties, but us teenagers were doing our own things and mostly didn't care what the olds were up to. It was definitely there, though.