I guess I’m curious about generations (namely GenZ and Alpha) who didn’t live in a pre-Internet time. Like,

  • How was the concept first explained to you, or when did it click?
  • Do you understand how insane it is to have the aggregate of all human knowledge — the only comparable thing once being a physical library or university — one search away? That it’s absolutely insane you can engage in a real-time conversation with someone on the opposite side of the world? That you can find niche communities in an instant?
  • Were your parents super strict about internet usage? How quickly did you find workarounds?
  • @[email protected]
    26•2 months ago

    Born in 2004, I barely used the internet as a kid. Most my video games were off of CDs, and I occasionally got to use my dad’s Steam account. In like 4th grade I played some Wizards101, League of Legends, and some flash games, and started watching Minecraft youtubers. Besides that I mostly used the internet to download Minecraft mods. I kinda eased into the internet that way so I never really was surprised at having so much accessible to me.

    I didn’t get on social media until I got on Reddit in high school. I tried Tumblr a bit but didn’t like it since it was too different. I still don’t use Twitter or anything, just Reddit and Lemmy and occasionally Pinterest.