The Internet isn't a place anymore
Do you remember “the computer room”? We live in there now.
I remember when my parents renamed the guest room “the computer room.” We never had guests stay with us anyway, and so “the computer room” was born, baptized with a clunky Commodore 64.
I recall playing all sorts of games, creating DOS patterns, and then at some point we graduated to a plastic container to house our floppy disks, perhaps even a newer computer… I can’t remember. In my mind, I went right from Zork1 to AOL but I know there was a lot in between, lost somewhere in the depths of my brain.
I recently read an article on Business Insider about the disappearance of the term “brb” (be right back)2, which indicates the ubiquitous experience of being online all the time—not only via the smartphones in our pockets, but our streaming services, our computers at work, and other devices we carry (watches, iPads, etc.). We have Alexas and Google Homes… they’re always online. Shit, even my thermostat and my kitchen range are online.
We can’t really “brb” anymore.
The article also included this wonderful post and quote tweet:
Even more telling of the expedited rate of tech advancement is a Thread I saw the other day (can’t find it now) reminiscing about the hashtags #tbt or #throwbackthursday, a tag we used to use on IG in the earlier days when social media feeds were chronological and therefore everyone could participate in a timely event simultaneously. The end of #tbt wasn’t even that long ago… and we are already reminiscing? Whew!
While the Internet has been around for much longer than most of us have used it, in the last 25-ish years, we’ve witnessed it’s slow occupation over our entire lives. Creeping year by year like ivy , it has entangled everything.
In the past, “the Internet” lived on one device that never moved, in a specific room or a corner of your home. Or at the library, or an “Internet cafe.”3
It was not portable.
It was a place.
It was a time.
A scheduled hour or few hours of usage after dinner or homework was done.
A meeting place for friends.
Was it more special then? More appreciated? More exciting? Perhaps.
I started thinking about this while watching PEN15 in which Maya and Anna discover AOL chat rooms. It brought back vivid memories of my first time meeting strangers on the Internet, chatting with randos, and how crazy some of those AOL chat rooms were! But there were limits to the usage—we logged on and then we logged OFF.
There is no log off button anymore.
We can’t opt out.
There is a perpetually connected computer in your pocket.
We live online.4
Sometimes I open my phone to do something and end up scrolling Instagram for 15 minutes only to realize I forgot why I opened my phone in the first place. I know that this experience is not unique to me.
What happened?
The era of the desktop computer station is pretty much over (RIP), and while your parents or grandparents might still have a computer room or corner5, I bet they also have a smartphone.
I love technology and progress and “the future,” but I’m going through a nostalgic phase in my life right now and I think others my age are, too.6
The pre-Internet days and the pre-perpetually online days are being romanticized by Millennials and many Gen Xers (like me), who are the first generations to go from offline to online in their formative years, and therefore the first perpetually online generation to have a very public outlet for their nostalgic mid-life crises.
wrote an ode to pay phones and land lines that I found to be similar in tone—and there is a kinship between being tethered to a phone line via a cord, and being on the computer in early the days—especially when AOL went through your actual phone line. Being connected to other people pre-Internet when not in person was solely through the telephone.While we bond over these moments and these memories, out in the open, we have to also recognize that we did this. We developed a lot of the technology that’s being used today and led teams or founded some of the companies that dominate Big Tech7. Our colleagues and peers and friends and our generations were responsible for making the business decisions in the movement away from a weird, fun, wild, community-driven place into whatever it is we have now. We’ve made the world so dependent on technology that it would be a challenge to function without it.
Everything is streaming content, 24 hours a day, never on or off. Never in a particular location or at a specific time. Most of it is on-demand.
With limitless information at your fingertips at any moment, how are you expected to ever be “offline?"
How difficult would it be now—even outside of work—to limit yourself to 1-hour per day in the computer room?
My favorite.
I can’t remember the last time I used “brb”
These places still exist.
And yet, simultaneously, we still live offline
I’m talking to my peer group here, Gen X & Millennials
It’s called a “mid-life crisis” 🫣
Although some were also founded by Boomers, you can’t discount Zuck’s role in transforming how the Big Tech companies operate.
I remember after meeting friends at a show, we'd all drive home, then hop on mIRC to keep the conversation going. Make sure everyone got home okay. Then we went to bed! Conversation over until the next day, after work, after hanging out with friends in real life, or band practice, or playing basketball. It was an add-on to the day, not the destination.