4 ms·

Growing up in early 90s we had a computer lab where we would go as part of kindergarten and first grade to play logo draw and Oregon trail. That feels way diffe

Growing up in early 90s we had a computer lab where we would go as part of kindergarten and first grade to play logo draw and Oregon trail. That feels way different to the type of tech exposure kids are getting these days with social media. There is something fundamentally different about making things “social” than just doing something harmless offline, like playing a game with the family, writing a story, using MS paint, math blaster. When things became social, it’s like we were all given sledgehammers and told to go smash the candy store and raid it for whatever we wanted. Maybe I’m being nostalgic for the early / mid 90s when we didn’t have these devices glued to us and little red notification icons hijacking our dopaminergic circuitry.

reeckoh 4y ago
+1 to offline computer labs. Our primary school had one in the '90s, but they only let us in for an hour or two each week. The teachers didn't know how to use the computers, and the parents mostly felt that it was a waste of time which would rot our child brains. Still, the school had paid a bunch of money for it as part of an initiative to get rid of the library's card catalog system, so it had to be used. The teachers tried to convince everyone to play math and typing games, but most kids played with a sort of photoshop-lite program, stuck magnets onto the CRT screens, or played Oregon Trail. It wasn't an efficient process, but just about everybody in our district was a proficient typist by middle school. When I got to college, I was surprised by how many people typed on their laptops like they type on their phones, with rapid index finger pecks.
- MattDemers 4y ago
  We figured out pretty quick how to use Windows' internal network messenger, and that was pretty cool (in terms of being able to chat with peers without the teachers knowing). It still blows my mind that kids are using Chromebooks and Ipads daily on an elementary level.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    > It still blows my mind that kids are using Chromebooks and Ipads daily on an elementary level. I saw this recently on an equipment list for first graders. “One iPad and Macbook with specifications in line required by the school”. Wtf is my first grader going to do with an iPad other than watch Youtube?
- the_only_law 4y ago
  > , I was surprised by how many people typed on their laptops like they type on their phones, with rapid index finger pecks. What kind of people do you hang around. I don’t know anyone who commonly uses their index fingers to type on their phone. It’s mostly thumbs.
  - reeckoh 4y ago
    Good question - I'm even typing this with thumbs now! Thinking back, it was during a time when most phones were small enough to fit comfortably in one small hand. People would hold it with one hand, and use the other to tap. Modern phones are too heavy and bulky for that, so I think we use both hands to hold and use them. Or maybe the finger-pecking was unrelated to phone use, who knows.
gsatic 4y ago
Fundamental difference is there is click/like/upvote/view/follower count next to everything. These counts never existed on the old Internet. Kids were never getting judged with the whole planet scoring their thoughts like today. And people werent programmed to think collecting Likes and Followers is the point of the whole story.
- amadeuspagel 4y ago
  Thankfully, there's still 4chan. At least one place to talk without a click/like/upvote/view/follower count.
  - noobermin 4y ago
    And probably the worst place for a child to go.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Fundamental difference is there is click/like/upvote/view/follower count next to everything. These counts never existed on the old Internet. Public view counts on individual pages were extremely common on the “old internet”, if by that you mean the WWW pre the rise of the terms “social media” and “social network”.
api 4y ago
The problem with social media isn’t the social part. It’s the media part. Media comes from the root of mediate. Social media is a huge system sitting between people and mediating their communication. The main goal function for most of it is to maximize engagement, which means amplifying and prioritizing the most toxic interactions. It’s like having someone sitting between you and your friends steering the conversation toward whatever is the most negative, hateful, or ridiculous.
unglaublich 4y ago
Growing up in 00s, we had internet porn, scams and gambling _everywhere_... still we turned out fine.
jgavris 4y ago
Oh how I miss the computer labs with Kidpix, Oregon trail, Mavis Beacon, and maybe later Marathon LAN parties (when the instructor left the room for an hour)...
- baremetal 4y ago
  In middle school we had quake 1 too. But only during recess or before school.
girvo 4y ago
> math blaster https://www-old--games-ru.translate.goog/game/11519.html?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc https://www-old--games-ru.translate.goog/game/11519.html?_x_... This is the game that taught me maths when I was 4-5 years old, and part of why I was excellent at maths for the rest of my schooling. Gosh it was fun! That plus exploring Encarta 95 for hours on end. But I also sunk a lot of time into SimCity 2000 and MechWarrior 2, to be fair.
bigger_cheese 4y ago
I grew up in the mid to late 90's, so probably about 5 years later than you. My first real exposure to the internet was through my year 7 English class. My English teacher was I guess you'd call an early adopter he was one of those people convinced technology was going to be revolutionary he somehow signed our class up to be a part of an email pen pal program with a school in Japan. One lesson a week we would go to the school library (where there was a computer with dial up internet) we would tell the teacher what we wanted to say and he would type 2 or 3 sentences from each student in our class and then send it using a program called "Eudora" (pretty sure we were using the teacher's personal address) and maybe a week later the teacher would show up to class with a stack of printouts. He would hand each of us the printout from our respective pen pal full of broken English. We did this for maybe a semester. That was my first exposure to online "social" use of computers. A few years Later people started to get internet at home ICQ (a chat program became pretty popular) this was around the time of Napster so there was a lot of downloading songs sharing them with people on ICQ etc. A little after that Online gaming was starting to be possible, I remember playing Quake, Starcraft and Diablo 2 with my friends online. I think around year 11/12 Counterstrike came out, it was a mod for the game Half Life and was very popular. The latency was normally pretty bad but it slowly got better. In the early days bandwidth was so limited it really restricted what kinds of social activities you could do on line.

reeckoh 4y ago

+1 to offline computer labs. Our primary school had one in the '90s, but they only let us in for an hour or two each week. The teachers didn't know how to use the computers, and the parents mostly felt that it was a waste of time which would rot our child brains. Still, the school had paid a bunch of money for it as part of an initiative to get rid of the library's card catalog system, so it had to be used. The teachers tried to convince everyone to play math and typing games, but most kids played with a sort of photoshop-lite program, stuck magnets onto the CRT screens, or played Oregon Trail. It wasn't an efficient process, but just about everybody in our district was a proficient typist by middle school. When I got to college, I was surprised by how many people typed on their laptops like they type on their phones, with rapid index finger pecks.

MattDemers 4y ago
We figured out pretty quick how to use Windows' internal network messenger, and that was pretty cool (in terms of being able to chat with peers without the teachers knowing). It still blows my mind that kids are using Chromebooks and Ipads daily on an elementary level.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  > It still blows my mind that kids are using Chromebooks and Ipads daily on an elementary level. I saw this recently on an equipment list for first graders. “One iPad and Macbook with specifications in line required by the school”. Wtf is my first grader going to do with an iPad other than watch Youtube?
the_only_law 4y ago
> , I was surprised by how many people typed on their laptops like they type on their phones, with rapid index finger pecks. What kind of people do you hang around. I don’t know anyone who commonly uses their index fingers to type on their phone. It’s mostly thumbs.
- reeckoh 4y ago
  Good question - I'm even typing this with thumbs now! Thinking back, it was during a time when most phones were small enough to fit comfortably in one small hand. People would hold it with one hand, and use the other to tap. Modern phones are too heavy and bulky for that, so I think we use both hands to hold and use them. Or maybe the finger-pecking was unrelated to phone use, who knows.

gsatic 4y ago

Fundamental difference is there is click/like/upvote/view/follower count next to everything. These counts never existed on the old Internet. Kids were never getting judged with the whole planet scoring their thoughts like today. And people werent programmed to think collecting Likes and Followers is the point of the whole story.

amadeuspagel 4y ago
Thankfully, there's still 4chan. At least one place to talk without a click/like/upvote/view/follower count.
- noobermin 4y ago
  And probably the worst place for a child to go.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Fundamental difference is there is click/like/upvote/view/follower count next to everything. These counts never existed on the old Internet. Public view counts on individual pages were extremely common on the “old internet”, if by that you mean the WWW pre the rise of the terms “social media” and “social network”.

api 4y ago

The problem with social media isn’t the social part. It’s the media part. Media comes from the root of mediate. Social media is a huge system sitting between people and mediating their communication. The main goal function for most of it is to maximize engagement, which means amplifying and prioritizing the most toxic interactions. It’s like having someone sitting between you and your friends steering the conversation toward whatever is the most negative, hateful, or ridiculous.

unglaublich 4y ago

Growing up in 00s, we had internet porn, scams and gambling _everywhere_... still we turned out fine.

jgavris 4y ago

Oh how I miss the computer labs with Kidpix, Oregon trail, Mavis Beacon, and maybe later Marathon LAN parties (when the instructor left the room for an hour)...

baremetal 4y ago
In middle school we had quake 1 too. But only during recess or before school.

girvo 4y ago

> math blaster https://www-old--games-ru.translate.goog/game/11519.html?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc https://www-old--games-ru.translate.goog/game/11519.html?_x_... This is the game that taught me maths when I was 4-5 years old, and part of why I was excellent at maths for the rest of my schooling. Gosh it was fun! That plus exploring Encarta 95 for hours on end. But I also sunk a lot of time into SimCity 2000 and MechWarrior 2, to be fair.

bigger_cheese 4y ago

I grew up in the mid to late 90's, so probably about 5 years later than you. My first real exposure to the internet was through my year 7 English class. My English teacher was I guess you'd call an early adopter he was one of those people convinced technology was going to be revolutionary he somehow signed our class up to be a part of an email pen pal program with a school in Japan. One lesson a week we would go to the school library (where there was a computer with dial up internet) we would tell the teacher what we wanted to say and he would type 2 or 3 sentences from each student in our class and then send it using a program called "Eudora" (pretty sure we were using the teacher's personal address) and maybe a week later the teacher would show up to class with a stack of printouts. He would hand each of us the printout from our respective pen pal full of broken English. We did this for maybe a semester. That was my first exposure to online "social" use of computers. A few years Later people started to get internet at home ICQ (a chat program became pretty popular) this was around the time of Napster so there was a lot of downloading songs sharing them with people on ICQ etc. A little after that Online gaming was starting to be possible, I remember playing Quake, Starcraft and Diablo 2 with my friends online. I think around year 11/12 Counterstrike came out, it was a mod for the game Half Life and was very popular. The latency was normally pretty bad but it slowly got better. In the early days bandwidth was so limited it really restricted what kinds of social activities you could do on line.