It’s Hard To Believe People Used To Do This Before Wi-Fi And Internet

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By Monica Gray - July 13, 2023

Before Wi-Fi, the world was a very different place. People didn’t have access to tons of information at their fingertips. No internet forced people to go outside and socialize. If you wanted to make plans, you had to hope someone was hoping to pick up their phone on the landline. Some people refer to this time in the world as the “dark ages,” though there was likely nothing dark about it. At dinnertime in the 1980s and 1990s, no one checked their phone, and people were forced to talk about current events with each other.

Imagine! Since no one knew what they were missing, they didn’t think about a world with Wi-Fi. Arguably, some would say it was a much better place. Though having the internet certainly makes a lot of things easier. These were the times you had to wait for your favorite song to play on the radio, carry change at all times, and use a map for directions.

If You Wanted A Song, You Had To Tape It Off The Radio

It’s Hard To Believe People Used To Do This Before Wi-Fi And Internet — Make Use Of

We can have any song in the world we want with the simple click of a button. Thanks to Wi-Fi, sound is at our fingertips. Want to listen to Mozart? Google his name and you’ll have all of his songs before your eyes. In the mood for some techno? Spotify has you covered! But before Wi-Fi, having access to these songs was a lot more difficult.

You had to save money to buy copies of songs or wait for them to play on the radio and hope your tape recorder was easily accessible. In the ’60s, all Ford cars came with an 8-track player, and portable stereos gained popularity. Still, you had to have the tape with you at all times to play the song. And it wasn’t until the Walkman was invented that you could take this music with you out of the house and the car and into the street (Make Use Of).

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Y2K Millenium Bug Was A Thing

As the year 2000 approached, people worried about computer glitches, nightmare scenarios, and computers that wouldn’t understand what year it was. Computer timestamps were once coded with a two-digit year instead of a four-digit year. People worried this would make the computers go back in time to the year 1900, as opposed to the year 2000.

People developed what-if horror stories and thought the world would collapse. They referred to it as the Millenium Bug. This did not happen. But before the day and age of Wi-Fi, people believed mass communication would shut down the world. Australia invested millions of dollars to prepare for the Millenium Bug, whereas Russia invested none. Nothing happened, but before the age of Wi-Fi, people had no idea what to expect when the year changed (National Geographic).

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They Unplugged The Landline Phones For Internet

Back in the pre-Wi-Fi era, you had to rely on dial-up modems to connect your computer to the world wide web. And just because you connected to the internet, it didn’t mean you’d stay connected. If someone used your landline and dialed another number, you’d lose connection. If this happened and you were in the middle of a game or chatting on AOL, all would be lost. You’d have to reconnect and start the process again.

To completely avoid this, people would unplug their landlines. That meant no calls, but at least you wouldn’t have to worry about losing internet. Your computer probably looked like an ancient robot. You had to sit there and wait for the dial-up sound to finish, which meant you were connected. Google searches took one minute, and even downloading one song took an entire day (Southern Phone).

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You Had To Use Encyclopedias

It sounds kind of obvious, but Google wasn’t at your fingertips back in the day. To find information, you had to head to your local library, pick up an encyclopedia, and dig through all that information in the hopes you’d find what you were looking for. It likely came in handy, since you were only getting real information and not fake news. Still, looking for that information was a dedication. But it did have benefits, as people had longer attention spans and consumed less information, which meant they had time for personal hobbies and conversations with loved ones that lasted longer than a few minutes… or seconds (Brilliantio).

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People Played More In Person Games

Some people still love to indulge in board game nights. But before our modern entertainment outlets, people were needing to pass the time with more basic entertainment. You needed to call your friends, meet up with them in person, and then put a board game in front of you. If you wanted to play multiplayer games, you had to gather all of your friends together and make a night out of it. There was no easy access to the internet or the ability to click a button and sit in front of your friends, or strangers, and play a game (The Gamer).

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One Episode Per Week

If you wanted to watch your favorite show, you had to plan your entire day around that show. You had one hour, likely in the evening, to plop yourself in front of the couch and hope your television set worked. The worst part? They usually only aired one new episode per week. That meant that for every cliffhanger, you had to wait an entire week to watch the next episode.

People didn’t have the luxury of binge-watching shows or taking their time. They had to be on the time of the network. Something was satisfying and rewarding about waiting for a show to air, though. It made it a lot more enjoyable. If you wanted to watch a movie, you had to head to a store like Blockbuster and pay to watch your favorite movie. And you had to make sure you returned it within a certain time frame, much like renting a library book (Interesting Engineering).

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GeoCities

Before Wikipedia, there was a website called GeoCities. People used it to find information, and like-minded people connected with each other. It was similar to modern-day Facebook before social media took over. The USA had 38 million GeoCities sites before the company shut it down. Yahoo bought GeoCities for $3 million.

An interview with the owner of the site said, “We have decided to discontinue the process of allowing new customers to sign up for GeoCities accounts as we focus on helping our customers explore and build new relationships online in other ways. We will be closing GeoCities later this year.” Little did they know, the internet boom was about to happen. GeoCities would have become obsolete, anyway (Mashable).

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Using A GameBoy To Take A Selfie

Taking selfies involved many more technical skills than just grabbing your phone and snapping a photo. If you wanted to take a selfie, you needed the GameBoy, GameBoy Camera, and GameBoy Printer setup. It was an inconvenient way to snap a photo, though it got the job done. Things were a lot harder before smartphones and Wi-Fi… and selfie-taking was one of them. People loved the look so much, that there’s even an app that lets you take GameBoy-styled selfies. Even though technology has improved drastically since the pixel photos from the GameBoy era, people consider these photos retro and cool. That’s why people seek them (Nerdist).

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You Spent Hours And Hours In Chat Rooms

Before texting was a thing, people spent hours and hours in Internet chat rooms, connecting with friends and strangers. AOL existed. And while you were probably talking to your friends most of the time, you probably dabbled in chatting with strangers, too. Before Wi-Fi, people had to go through great efforts to connect with others, and these chat rooms were usually organized by subject. Want to chat about music? There’s a chat room for that. What about bizarre, freakish things? There was likely a chat room for that, too.

Many people wasted months and even years behind the screen, chatting about nothing in particular. Even though people spend a lot of their time sucked into their phone screens, at least you know who you’re talking to. If you were on AOL, you’d have to listen for the sound of a door creaking opening and closing, which meant a beloved friend was opening those doors. Mike Riccardi, a web developer, spoke about this wild time in the ’90s. He said, “It was a different time because, in the ‘90s, no one gave their real personal information on the internet. It was cool because even if your parents were in the next room, they couldn’t hear what you were talking about because you were typing on your keyboard.” Users spent over a million hours chatting every single year (Inverse).

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You Had To Go Out And Look For A Potential Mate

Dating apps didn’t exist before Wi-Fi, and long before the internet, you had to go out to bars and meet people through your friends. And if you saw someone you fancied on a night out, you had to muster up all that courage and approach them in person. Or, if you were really shy, you’d send your best friend over and let them do the work. The internet changed this forever, and thanks to apps like Tinder and Hinge, it’s easier than ever before to meet people. You can easily match with people who have similar interests and hobbies, and even meet people later in life (Broadband Search).

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Meeting Times Couldn’t Be Changed Last Minute

If you wanted to meet your friend, you had to plan ahead of time. That meant telling a friend you’d meet them at noon on the dot, in front of a specific location. If you got the time or date wrong, you wouldn’t see your friend. You spent a lot of your time waiting for people. Before Wi-Fi, there was no way to contact them after leaving your house. Unless you happened to be near a pay phone, that is (List25).

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Computer Room In School

Before everyone had computers and even multiple computers, schoolchildren used to walk in a line in the hallway to the educational room, where nearly 30 computers were waiting for them. Some schools only had a couple of computers. Children had to sign up for 30-minute slots to search the world wide web. But most of the time, they’d play educational games like The Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? In the latter, you had to follow sneaky clues in the hopes of catching the thief. Other games included Number Munchers, Scooter’s Magic Castle, and The Magic School Bus (Buzzfeed).

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We Printed Instead Of Using Social Media

Instead of digital social media, it was printed and hung on a wall. If you wanted to put up information for the world to see, you needed to stick the paper to the wall as hardcopy and hope people walking past saw it. You may still see this in community libraries or coffee shops, but printed ads were usually the best way to connect with strangers. But that doesn’t mean you were immune from trolls. People would still make unsolicited comments on your notice and frequently draw and scribble all over it. Even though it’s still effective to hang notices around for people to see, it doesn’t reach as many people as someone with thousands of followers on Instagram or Twitter (Chilli Printing).

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Write Down Phone Numbers

No one had a digital version of a phone book. If you wanted a phone number, you had to write it down on paper, or even worse, remember it! If you mixed up two numbers or wrote something illegible down, you’re out of luck. There was no Wi-Fi to look up someone’s name or shoot them a quick message to ask them a question. You could also use a phone book directory, which was a large book with everyone’s name inside. You’d skim the phone book by the last name and hope there was only one of the people you were looking for. Phone books were especially popular in the 1980s and 1990s (Tagari).

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You Said Hello With A/S/L

No, A/S/L does not stand for American Sign Language. Instant Messagers used this as a way of greeting someone to ask them their age, sex, and location. People crosschecked to see if the person on the other side was a good fit. This was an exciting time for people using instant messenger, as they could chat with people on internet soil in real-time. They didn’t have to rely on a landline to make a phone call. Even though this method was a lot slower and less reliable than Wi-Fi, it’s all they had (Academic Kids).

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Mobile Games Were Different

When flip phones first came out, the idea of playing games on them was unthinkable. How could you possibly play a game on a tiny phone screen? But when Nokia came out with the game “Snake,” the idea of mobile games changed forever. It was the start of a domino effect of games, something that would change the world and the future of games forever. Before Snake, the only game that existed was Tetris. It was unthinkable to imagine these monochrome games would turn into something bigger and more complex, like the games we have today (Gameopedia).

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It’s Hard To Imagine Sending Letters Was The Quickest Form Of Communication

If you wanted to communicate with someone living in another town than you, you had to send a letter. It was longer and more complex than sending a simple text or email, but in the days before Wi-Fi, everything was longer and more complex. People had to pick up a pen and scribble words on a piece of paper, fold the letter up, put it in an envelope, and send it in the mail. The entire process would take days, and you hoped the letter made it in time. Nowadays, Wi-Fi spoils us with the rapidness of emails and the speed at which we can communicate with each other.

English teacher Shozo Shimazaki spoke about the art of writing letters, and said, “[You] talk a little bit reflecting on your feelings about [the] stuff going on in your life, but since you weren’t going to get an immediate response, it’s something you wanted them to know and hold on to. At least for a week, you might think about what they wrote and what you might say back and it allows you to get a little deeper. Just that pacing allows for more reflections.” With an email, you don’t necessarily have that reflection given the rapid speed at which it’s sent (El Estoque).

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Pay Bills With Checks

You had to use a checkbook to pay your bills before Wi-Fi existed. There was no online bank system that lets you pay your bills with the click of a button, or let you make automatic payments without even having to sign in. You had to grab your checkbook, write out a check, and send it to the company. Most of the time, you’d hope it would arrive on time so you wouldn’t get penalized with a late fee. People would have to talk to real humans instead of clicking the button on their computer screen (Quora).

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You Had To Use A Map

Welcome to the days of no Google Maps! Before Wi-Fi, people couldn’t whip open their phones, press a button, and have a magical voice give them directions to an unknown location. You had to either study a map or ask someone for directions. Both seem nerve-wracking and something people nowadays couldn’t do. Reading a map is certainly a good skill and something most people should know, in case their lost. Exact distance and traffic times were not a priority, their priority was making it from Point A to Point B without getting lost (Quora).

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You Saved Files On A Floppy Disc

There’s nothing more legendary than the floppy disc. It was an icon of the era before Wi-Fi. Those of you who lived through those floppy disc times remember what it was like to manually save all of your data on that large disc. You’d have to be very careful where you placed it, store it securely, and make sure you never lost it. Even that soft sleeve that came with the floppy discs to keep them free from scratches didn’t protect them. Back then, it was the only reliable way to transfer files.

Roger Kasten, the IBM Systems’ Worldwide Storage Manager said, “The floppy disk provided the first genuinely easy way to transfer files. Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, we often depended on ‘sneaker-net’ to transfer data between computers. All you had to do was put data on a floppy, walk over to a colleague or friend, hand the floppy over, and allow that person to copy the data to their system.” Now, we have websites like WeTransfer and Dropbox to easily send files to each other, even if we’re across the entire world (IBM)

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You Explored The World Wide Web With Netscape Navigator

If you had access to the net well before the days of Wi-Fi, you probably used Netscape Navigator. This was before Microsoft and Google, and eventually, the two caught on. But you were likely there for the rise and fall of the Netscape drama. Developers released the first successful browser in 1994. It cleared the air of the massive mess and clutter that was the internet.

Eric Bina, one of the original creators of Netscape Navigator, said, “The original idea was how to [make] all of this information easily accessible to anyone.” He and his business partner had a vision of the potential of the internet, and before Wi-Fi, anything was possible. Bina went on to say, “At the time, I [told Andreessen] that this was a terrible idea because it was going to break the internet. There just wasn’t enough bandwidth. Of course, I was completely wrong.” And how wrong he was! (Popular Mechanics).

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Images Took Forever To Load

Thanks to the slow dial-up speeds of the good old days, that meant there was slow page loading. Pre-Wi-Fi life was slow, and if you wanted to load an image, you better grab some popcorn. Remember the photos that slowly loaded, line after excruciating line? Luckily, we don’t have that problem any more thanks to faster internet connections and speeds (YouTube).

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You Had To Leave The House To Socialize

Before the internet, people had to step out of their houses if they wanted to see any of their friends. They didn’t have anything like Google, YouTube, and social media to keep them entertained. They couldn’t have Zoom meetings from their phones, or lead a team from their bed. People went to the cinema to watch a movie. As internet user, Allison Michael said on Quora, “As kids, we got a lot more physical exercise, but mostly because we were soul-crushingly bored.

We would do just about anything for a few moments of entertainment. Some of it was dangerous. Those of us who lived have great stories to tell of running away from vicious dogs, climbing tall trees, and having spectacular bike wrecks with colorful injuries to be retold of for decades.” That sounds a lot more fulfilling than sitting in front of a screen and watching a movie, albeit way more dangerous. In the good old days before Wi-Fi, kids live a faster-paced life (Quora).

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