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I started using the web in the mid 90s at around nine or ten. The most positive interactions I remember weren't on nascent chat rooms or forums but through emai
by tjpnz 2y ago
I started using the web in the mid 90s at around nine or ten. The most positive interactions I remember weren't on nascent chat rooms or forums but through email. As a space obsessed kid I managed to build a small email list of contacts within NASA and their internal librarian even mailed a bunch of stuff to my home address in New Zealand. I'm not sure if you could have that same experience now, instead of an email address people will now list their Twitter handle. But that's no place for kids.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y agoOne of my earlier, formative internet experiences (last 90s) was on a forum. It was a reply to one of my comments, from Douglas Adams. The internet used to be a vast number of places you could travel to, each populated by a small but generally friendly set of people. You could have a discussion with the group about shared interests surrounding a specific topic. Sure, there were trolls, but they were few and far between. Today's social media landscape is a handful of sites where everyone goes to discuss everything. As a result, it's much, much harder to have productive discussions that don't get derailed or out-and-out attacked by bad actors.