7 ms·

A 1980 Teenager's View of Social Media

76 points by brianstorms 12y ago

MichaelCrawford 12y ago
"The all-too-few of us already thriving online now and who’ve seen the future, find it hard to explain to the multitudes who haven’t yet what this all is and why it’s really important." Some people are well-aware of what computers are, but they choose not to use them. It's not because they don't have the money or the expertise to use them; I know a sheriff's deputy who uses computers in his work, but he doesn't have a computer at home. He never uses a computer when he's off work. From time to time I suggest to people where they can get free computer training; there are ways to obtain actual hardware either inexpensively or even free of charge. But few who I offer such suggestions to, want to use computers. The reason they don't use computers is not because they cannot, but choose not to.
- sixothree 12y ago
  I think this statement reflects that this is a period piece describing a time when you told people you had a computer and they would always inevitably ask you "but what are you going to DO with it?"
  - daledavies 12y ago
    Unfortunately today i find the response is all to often "but do I really HAVE to use the computer". Some people still don't get it!
  - MichaelCrawford 12y ago
    Some people know all about computers. That's why they choose not to use them - that Sheriff's Deputy for example. I myself am quite a good automobile driver. I have no problem at all driving quite safely at one-hundred miles per hour. I'm also handy with tools, so I have no problem maintaining a car all on my own. Even so, I prefer public transportation for many good reasons. It's not like I don't know what I could do with a car. It's that I like riding trains.
- cbd1984 12y ago
  I wonder how much of that choice is driven by fear, not so much fear that the computer would Do Bad Things, like some enraged minor deity, but fear that they really are Out Of It and can't learn new things. If they don't try, they can't fail, and they don't have to face up to things quite yet. Maybe I'm being uncharitable.
  - johnchristopher 12y ago
    Anecdote: If I ever switch profession it's already decided I will not have a computer at home.
  - Swizec 12y ago
    OR they consider computers as work machines and don't want to bring work home. I mean, if all you're going to do with it is watch TV and fart around online, you don't need a computer at home really. You're better off without TV and you're definitely better off without wasting time on imgur, HN, Facebook, etc. My point is, having a computer at home is kind of passe these days unless you're a nerd.
    - sukilot 12y ago
      Considering how many people use Facebook Instagram and WhatsApp, your notion of "passe" is... passe.
      - Swizec 12y ago
        Most people use those on their phone, not on their computers. Looking at my non-nerd family members and non-nerd friends it seems that the only reason anyone opens a computer is to watch a movie, watch youtube on a bigger screen, or to do some sort of work or another. (school reports for instance)
firebones 12y ago
You know what's weird? I met my future wife online at college via a PARTI (PARTICIPATE, a terminal based messaging system running on PR1MOS that allowed a form of effectively real-time chatting and pseudonyms) in college...in the mid 1980s. So in most of the 1980s and into the 1990s, I couldn't really effectively answer the "how did you meet" question because that wasn't yet a thing yet. ("On the computer" wasn't really satisfactory before people had a notion of "online".) And when it was more technically explainable, it was sort of seedy because there was so little that was local or social about it. So the discovery, decades later, of people meeting online, of social media, of dating sites, of changing screen names to reflect your mood...that all seemed ancient in a way. The only thing left is to watch it go by, to be rediscovered again by those new to computers...
- danellis 12y ago
  "So in most of the 1980s and into the 1990s, I couldn't really effectively answer the "how did you meet" question because that wasn't yet a thing yet." But Jumpin' Jack Flash came out in 1986!
- cbd1984 12y ago
  > "On the computer" Oh, computer dating, where you input your statistics and the computer picks the logically perfect match. Nah, it'll never catch on. (Remember that idea?)
  - greggarious 12y ago
    It still exists. It's called "OKCupid".
    - 88e282102ae2e5b 12y ago
      cbd1984's comment was a joke.
    - sukilot 12y ago
      The "matching" part of OK cupid is a joke/gimmick, though. It's accuracy level is not really well correlated to the site success. They even showed that once when they intentionally flipped the match scores
cshimmin 12y ago
Wow, this was a hugely entertaining read. I can hardly believe it was written in 1980. Really lost it, laughing out loud at this part (and several other parts): > There is nothing like going home to the parents house and sitting there at the dinner table trying to explain what an amazing set of conversations you had today on the computer. They’re like, what? It can take an entire dinner conversation to try to explain what pnotes and TERM-talk are, and then you realize by the end of dinner, you have gotten nowhere, and they still simply Do. Not. Get. It. It’s frustrating. Some day, everyone will use these kinds of tools and we won’t be having these pointless hour-long conversations at the dinner table or anywhere else, trying to explain The Future, which for some weird reason you, lucky bastard, are already IN, while they’re still stuck in the past. I look forward to when this stuff is all mainstream and people can just talk about the online mail and chats they had today and nobody bats an eye. It will come. Question is, how long?
- cbd1984 12y ago
  We're not there yet, because technology keeps advancing and some people (stereotypically older) don't keep up, but the baseline of assumed knowledge does keep rising. At this point, the ideas of what a computer does and what the Internet does (not so much what they are, but the basic role they play) are assumed knowledge for everyone still active in the economy. The stereotypical image now is less "Old man picks up a computer mouse like a TV remote control and tries to change the channel on the monitor" and more "Old man has one inch of usable browser window due to the vast encrustation of spyware toolbars", which implies enough basic technical knowledge to even get those toolbars. It really wasn't too long ago when the comic stereotype of "really out-of-it old man" involved a horse and a plow and a Franklin stove, and I think that's pretty amazing.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    On the other hand: > I look forward to when this stuff is all mainstream and people can just talk about the online mail and chats they had today and nobody bats an eye. I think this time still haven't come yet. Of course almost everyone talks on-line a lot now, but adults can't admit openly they do, lest they get stigmatized as computer-addicted nerds who need to "log off to real life". Society at large still doesn't accept IMs and e-mails as a legitimate communication form. Maybe we need to wait until current teens grow up.
jccalhoun 12y ago
Really interesting article. I wish it hadn't been written with the gimmick of being written as if it were from the 80s.
- 88e282102ae2e5b 12y ago
  It was a response to this article: https://medium.com/backchannel/a-teenagers-view-on-social-media-1df945c09ac6 https://medium.com/backchannel/a-teenagers-view-on-social-me...
  - jccalhoun 12y ago
    I know. I knew that based on the title. I still wish it was a response and not an emulation or whatever.
- bigbugbag 12y ago
  Then you have a website[1] to look at and a book[2] to read. [1] : http://platohistory.org/ http://platohistory.org/ [2] : http://friendlyorangeglow.com/ http://friendlyorangeglow.com/
technofiend 12y ago
Oh man, so many good memories from that. My friend RPD III was so good at flashhook dialing we could dial in to PLATO even with a lock on the rotary phone, which was no small feat since it had a large number of high digits and a zero or two. We figured out the local admin's password (superkey+text man) and gave ourselves extra accounts and privileges. Sure we had hacked access to our RSTS/E PDP 11/34A by snagging the sysadmin's password off the LA30/LA36 (forget which) and replacing the login program, but even with Tek 4014 terminals it was nothing like PLATO.
bigbugbag 12y ago
Very interesting read. I often try to educate people telling them that the social network gimmick is just that : a gimmick in a marketing ploy. A network of computers is social by nature of the users being social beings. Using computers in a network was already social when I got in in the 1990's. The social part is not from facebook or whatever the current popular thing is, they try to get hold of it for their own profit and it's sad. I'm looked at weird when I say that so called social networks feature regressions from what was possible then. Reading this article, I learned that even in the 1990's we had made a few steps backward from the previous decades, I mean what happened to the simple feedback channel offered by TERM-comment ? How come this is not a standard feature ?
sciurus 12y ago
This article makes me miss Learnlink, Emory University's bulletin board and student email system from the mid-nineties to 2012. It was still going strong when I graduated in 2007. There's something magic that happens when everyone in a community is using the same service. Even though students come and go, a culture develops. There have been at least a couple replacement attempts, but I don't know if either have caught on. https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/emoryit/2014/06/20/learnlink-retired/ https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/emoryit/2014/06/20/learnlink-... http://osls.emory.edu/student_orgs/community/ll_to_community_migration_FAQs.html http://osls.emory.edu/student_orgs/community/ll_to_community... http://www.emorywheel.com/emory-bubble-launches-aims-to-replace-learnlink/ http://www.emorywheel.com/emory-bubble-launches-aims-to-repl...
davidgerard 12y ago
Heh. I learnt to touch type on a PLATO system in 1990.
denniscampbowl 12y ago
Good read. We all have our own take on social media and other internet ploys, marketing gimmicks now. It's just funny how people know they are being exploited and yet we still allow them to exploit us some more... Like we never really get enough.

76 points by brianstorms 12y ago

"The all-too-few of us already thriving online now and who’ve seen the future, find it hard to explain to the multitudes who haven’t yet what this all is and why it’s really important." Some people are well-aware of what computers are, but they choose not to use them. It's not because they don't have the money or the expertise to use them; I know a sheriff's deputy who uses computers in his work, but he doesn't have a computer at home. He never uses a computer when he's off work. From time to time I suggest to people where they can get free computer training; there are ways to obtain actual hardware either inexpensively or even free of charge. But few who I offer such suggestions to, want to use computers. The reason they don't use computers is not because they cannot, but choose not to.

sixothree 12y ago
I think this statement reflects that this is a period piece describing a time when you told people you had a computer and they would always inevitably ask you "but what are you going to DO with it?"
- daledavies 12y ago
  Unfortunately today i find the response is all to often "but do I really HAVE to use the computer". Some people still don't get it!
- MichaelCrawford 12y ago
  Some people know all about computers. That's why they choose not to use them - that Sheriff's Deputy for example. I myself am quite a good automobile driver. I have no problem at all driving quite safely at one-hundred miles per hour. I'm also handy with tools, so I have no problem maintaining a car all on my own. Even so, I prefer public transportation for many good reasons. It's not like I don't know what I could do with a car. It's that I like riding trains.
cbd1984 12y ago
I wonder how much of that choice is driven by fear, not so much fear that the computer would Do Bad Things, like some enraged minor deity, but fear that they really are Out Of It and can't learn new things. If they don't try, they can't fail, and they don't have to face up to things quite yet. Maybe I'm being uncharitable.
- johnchristopher 12y ago
  Anecdote: If I ever switch profession it's already decided I will not have a computer at home.
- Swizec 12y ago
  OR they consider computers as work machines and don't want to bring work home. I mean, if all you're going to do with it is watch TV and fart around online, you don't need a computer at home really. You're better off without TV and you're definitely better off without wasting time on imgur, HN, Facebook, etc. My point is, having a computer at home is kind of passe these days unless you're a nerd.
  - sukilot 12y ago
    Considering how many people use Facebook Instagram and WhatsApp, your notion of "passe" is... passe.
    - Swizec 12y ago
      Most people use those on their phone, not on their computers. Looking at my non-nerd family members and non-nerd friends it seems that the only reason anyone opens a computer is to watch a movie, watch youtube on a bigger screen, or to do some sort of work or another. (school reports for instance)

firebones 12y ago

You know what's weird? I met my future wife online at college via a PARTI (PARTICIPATE, a terminal based messaging system running on PR1MOS that allowed a form of effectively real-time chatting and pseudonyms) in college...in the mid 1980s. So in most of the 1980s and into the 1990s, I couldn't really effectively answer the "how did you meet" question because that wasn't yet a thing yet. ("On the computer" wasn't really satisfactory before people had a notion of "online".) And when it was more technically explainable, it was sort of seedy because there was so little that was local or social about it. So the discovery, decades later, of people meeting online, of social media, of dating sites, of changing screen names to reflect your mood...that all seemed ancient in a way. The only thing left is to watch it go by, to be rediscovered again by those new to computers...

danellis 12y ago
"So in most of the 1980s and into the 1990s, I couldn't really effectively answer the "how did you meet" question because that wasn't yet a thing yet." But Jumpin' Jack Flash came out in 1986!
cbd1984 12y ago
> "On the computer" Oh, computer dating, where you input your statistics and the computer picks the logically perfect match. Nah, it'll never catch on. (Remember that idea?)
- greggarious 12y ago
  It still exists. It's called "OKCupid".
  - 88e282102ae2e5b 12y ago
    cbd1984's comment was a joke.
  - sukilot 12y ago
    The "matching" part of OK cupid is a joke/gimmick, though. It's accuracy level is not really well correlated to the site success. They even showed that once when they intentionally flipped the match scores

cshimmin 12y ago

Wow, this was a hugely entertaining read. I can hardly believe it was written in 1980. Really lost it, laughing out loud at this part (and several other parts): > There is nothing like going home to the parents house and sitting there at the dinner table trying to explain what an amazing set of conversations you had today on the computer. They’re like, what? It can take an entire dinner conversation to try to explain what pnotes and TERM-talk are, and then you realize by the end of dinner, you have gotten nowhere, and they still simply Do. Not. Get. It. It’s frustrating. Some day, everyone will use these kinds of tools and we won’t be having these pointless hour-long conversations at the dinner table or anywhere else, trying to explain The Future, which for some weird reason you, lucky bastard, are already IN, while they’re still stuck in the past. I look forward to when this stuff is all mainstream and people can just talk about the online mail and chats they had today and nobody bats an eye. It will come. Question is, how long?

cbd1984 12y ago
We're not there yet, because technology keeps advancing and some people (stereotypically older) don't keep up, but the baseline of assumed knowledge does keep rising. At this point, the ideas of what a computer does and what the Internet does (not so much what they are, but the basic role they play) are assumed knowledge for everyone still active in the economy. The stereotypical image now is less "Old man picks up a computer mouse like a TV remote control and tries to change the channel on the monitor" and more "Old man has one inch of usable browser window due to the vast encrustation of spyware toolbars", which implies enough basic technical knowledge to even get those toolbars. It really wasn't too long ago when the comic stereotype of "really out-of-it old man" involved a horse and a plow and a Franklin stove, and I think that's pretty amazing.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  On the other hand: > I look forward to when this stuff is all mainstream and people can just talk about the online mail and chats they had today and nobody bats an eye. I think this time still haven't come yet. Of course almost everyone talks on-line a lot now, but adults can't admit openly they do, lest they get stigmatized as computer-addicted nerds who need to "log off to real life". Society at large still doesn't accept IMs and e-mails as a legitimate communication form. Maybe we need to wait until current teens grow up.

jccalhoun 12y ago

Really interesting article. I wish it hadn't been written with the gimmick of being written as if it were from the 80s.

88e282102ae2e5b 12y ago
It was a response to this article: https://medium.com/backchannel/a-teenagers-view-on-social-media-1df945c09ac6 https://medium.com/backchannel/a-teenagers-view-on-social-me...
- jccalhoun 12y ago
  I know. I knew that based on the title. I still wish it was a response and not an emulation or whatever.
bigbugbag 12y ago
Then you have a website[1] to look at and a book[2] to read. [1] : http://platohistory.org/ http://platohistory.org/ [2] : http://friendlyorangeglow.com/ http://friendlyorangeglow.com/

technofiend 12y ago

Oh man, so many good memories from that. My friend RPD III was so good at flashhook dialing we could dial in to PLATO even with a lock on the rotary phone, which was no small feat since it had a large number of high digits and a zero or two. We figured out the local admin's password (superkey+text man) and gave ourselves extra accounts and privileges. Sure we had hacked access to our RSTS/E PDP 11/34A by snagging the sysadmin's password off the LA30/LA36 (forget which) and replacing the login program, but even with Tek 4014 terminals it was nothing like PLATO.

bigbugbag 12y ago

Very interesting read. I often try to educate people telling them that the social network gimmick is just that : a gimmick in a marketing ploy. A network of computers is social by nature of the users being social beings. Using computers in a network was already social when I got in in the 1990's. The social part is not from facebook or whatever the current popular thing is, they try to get hold of it for their own profit and it's sad. I'm looked at weird when I say that so called social networks feature regressions from what was possible then. Reading this article, I learned that even in the 1990's we had made a few steps backward from the previous decades, I mean what happened to the simple feedback channel offered by TERM-comment ? How come this is not a standard feature ?

sciurus 12y ago

This article makes me miss Learnlink, Emory University's bulletin board and student email system from the mid-nineties to 2012. It was still going strong when I graduated in 2007. There's something magic that happens when everyone in a community is using the same service. Even though students come and go, a culture develops. There have been at least a couple replacement attempts, but I don't know if either have caught on. https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/emoryit/2014/06/20/learnlink-retired/ https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/emoryit/2014/06/20/learnlink-... http://osls.emory.edu/student_orgs/community/ll_to_community_migration_FAQs.html http://osls.emory.edu/student_orgs/community/ll_to_community... http://www.emorywheel.com/emory-bubble-launches-aims-to-replace-learnlink/ http://www.emorywheel.com/emory-bubble-launches-aims-to-repl...

davidgerard 12y ago

Heh. I learnt to touch type on a PLATO system in 1990.

denniscampbowl 12y ago

Good read. We all have our own take on social media and other internet ploys, marketing gimmicks now. It's just funny how people know they are being exploited and yet we still allow them to exploit us some more... Like we never really get enough.