Was life better or worse without the internet?

Better.

I think that the internet has not helped our memories!
We’re all getting older and cannot recall stuff like we used to, but it makes us lazy. An example of this. Say we watch a tv programme and there is an actor who we think ‘now what has he been in ?’ Nowadays we just google it and up comes a list of all the things he has appeared in. Whereas before, we would be puzzling over it and trying hard to remember. It felt very satisfying when we came up with a solution, but certainly frustrating if we couldn’t!

Like everything else depends who uses it and how, we can say that about anything else. It also changed the office world beyond recognition, making it a lot easier. So I'm all in favour and don't know how I managed before!

Not better, not worse, just different.

It may not be so good for everyone but for our generation it is a godsend. I am on it all the time, shopping, reading, learning, playing games and researching. We were able to give up our car because of on-line shopping. I hate clothes shopping so that too takes the hassle out of my life. I share games with my grandchildren and FaceTime them.

Maybe I am too dependent on it,
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Just different, I think.

The Internet is my lifeline and without it I'm sure I'd be huddled in a corner sucking my thumb.

I've had a computer since the 80's and what was later called 'the poor man's Internet' BBS (bulletin board system, which allowed you, via a TCP ( thank you Kahn and Cerf) link and modem, to access content in other people's computers and share.

I've downloaded and uploaded things since those early days (FTP) and 'met' many fascinating people on fora.
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Without access to medical journals, surveys, trials and papers I could never have written my books or the many articles I've completed over 30+ years.

Now, reduced as I am by eyesight failure, I couldn't even do my grocery shopping without it. Packets and tins and all price labels are a blur.

I can still see them online thank goodness, or rather thanks, Tim Berners-Lee.

BBS info for any fellow-geeks reading this.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system

I just love the internet and all its uses. I know I can go abroad for a few weeks but still be able to manage my daughters affairs, like her money and shopping and also face time her. I can keep in touch with all my old students out in SE Asia and seen them grow up into adults, married and have a family. They still contact me for advice on their studies love it. But there is a downside with social media side but I believe this is where parents should be helping their children. Restricting usage, teaching them how to stand up to bullies and responsible use of the internet.

I've been on the internet since 1993, and I would be lost without it now. It may be a problem for some children, but that is something the parents have to teach them,( even if it means they have to learn first.) Parent have always had to censor television, or films, but there was always a friend whose parents weren't so careful so youy child got to see things ou would rather they didn't.
It's a fact of life now.

I’ve just received quotes for car insurance, it took me about 10 minutes online. Before the Internet I would spend nearly all day ringing around for quotes, or phone a broker and wait for him to come back to me a few days later.

I do fear for youngsters though who aren’t worldly wise like we are and really have a hard time of it, they join social media sites due to peer pressure but aren’t able to cope with the consequences .
For me it’s made a lot of difference and made my life much easier.

So the question is does the bad outweigh the good? When I think of all the potential suffering that results from the internet (see my post above) I think it does. If only we could somehow stop all the bad stuff, but can that ever be possible? The genie is out of the bottle and can never be put back.

Numerology translates the letters www to 666 which is creepy.

I really like the internet for a number of reasons, but sadly there is a bad side to it

I think for parents, there are increasing hoops to jump through if they choose to try and keep up with current thinking; whether that's by experts, or just other parents.

I think life was less competitive, MissAdventure if only because both my daughters say they have felt pressurised into being 'perfect parents' and that has definitely come from online. I can remember when the girls were toddlers the first 'parenting' magazine came out. Now there is a huge amount of information about how parents should, or shouldn't, bring up their children. In my day it was instinct.

For me as an individual it is a huge plus.
It is like magic. I have been disabled for nearly thirty years and one of the difficulties was shopping.
Now it is easy.
I love that i can find out information so easily and stay in touch with people.

I only dislike the evil that some use it for.

I still know plenty of people without internet or mobile phones. They read the news in the few newspapers still around and also talk to neighbours and shopkeepers. Since DH has been volunteering in our local community shop, he hears all the local news gossip and gets to know the best tradespeople etc.

I do think life was much simpler (and maybe less competitive?) without it.

It has pros and cons, I think, and I'm not sure whether either one outweighs the other.

Mostly I love it, being able to look up anything instantly, shopping,communication,banking and research.

What I do not like is how difficult it is for people that compare themselves to everyone else worldwide and concentrate on those better off, leaving themselves miserable.

I also do not like that we know about every bit of bad news that happens anywhere. There was a time when you would only hear about an accident or crime if it was big enough to make the papers or a news programme.

I love many aspects of the internet. The way you can immediately, at any time of day or night, find out about almost anything , of course carefully checking the source. In the old days we had to go to the library and we also had a set of encyclopedias. My Dad used to buy Hobby magazine to learn how to do jobs around the house. Now you can see it on YouTube, so handy.

However, as a Mum I am so glad my children grew up without it. Mainly because of the awful bullying and expectations on social media, that is so common now. Of course there was still bullying in "the old days" . But it ended when you got home. No nasty phone texts in the evenings.

So as with most things, there is good and bad.

I agree with you NanaandGranpy that it's the people who use it in bad ways but it has been good in many ways as others testify.
Here am I, being anonymous but GN is like the old agony aunt columns which, as teenagers, we went straight to.

Apparently people have been writing their problems anonymously since the 17th century - and how do I know that? I googled it ofcourse.

I don’t think the problem lies with the internet but with the people who use it .

Anonymity allows us to be the worst version of ourselves . In real life conversations , face-to-face you are aware of the impact of your words and actions and even better you’re accountable . Online you can be anybody, say anything no matter how vile or despicable .

I’m a big fan of technology but in my opinion it has and will continue to impact the nature of communication and interaction and not all for the good .

We who are older already had our own thoughts/ideas and education to deal with life as we knew it and I see that as an advantage pre-internet for what the www has to offer today.

Can/ do youngsters have the same conversations or discussions that we have ? No, because our knowledge comes with an experience that has been consigned to history and not always in-keeping with todays education.

My own personal view is that life was better before the internet as everyone was made to think for themselves without the need for " outside " interference and this was a much better way of righting your wrongs rather than the myriads of faceless people on Facebook or other places of that ilk putting in their sometimes abusive sixpenn'orth.

Admittedly, it has become a life-line for those of us with families overseas when writing becomes a problem and postage and phone-calls an expense.

On the downside you have the sites which encourage crime/porn and suicide and should be banned as all have increased because of the awareness and availability of their existence.

I don't like what society has become and fear for the futures of children. I think it's sad in a way that our youngsters will never experience life as it was with our own parents. Still, we have one thing which nothing and nobody has and that's memories of how things used to be.

Good balanced post Chestnut. I tend to agree.

I agree with everything you say Chestnut.??

For normal people it's brilliant, contacting others, researching family history, shopping, finding out about absolutely anything etc. Although there's the problem of addition, because everyone is looking at their phones virtually all the time and can't stop.
But on the other side of the coin things are very different. With the dark web paedophiles have multiplied and can access stuff from all over the world including duping children in their own bedrooms, and others use it for all manner of evil including terrorism. Bullying on social media has affected youngsters in all sorts of dreadful ways and made them suicidal. The amount of evil there is on the web is so overwhelming that on balance I'm inclined to feel life was better without it.