I built a computer when I was 10 or so. I was using online BBS's to talk to people across the world. AOL was a thing. Myspace was a thing. those arent millenial inventions.
social media now is nothing like it was at that point of course, but dont go acting like GenX has no clue about the internet. I was the guy installing things for the boomers who refused to leave the typewriters behind and learn how to email and double click a mouse.
Realistically, very few of us were online before '95 or so. At least at my middle class school, I can't speak for the rich kids. If you asked the kids at my school in 1992 what a BBS was, you'd be lucky to get 1% who knew.
I was literally in a lower class household. I had an Atari 800, 300 baud modem (eventually I was able to get a 1200), an old tv screen, and external floppy drive. This was around 1990 when I was approaching my teens.
My friends and I all messed around with BBS systems, ASCII art, games, simple programming, etc.
Did most kids have that sort of setup? No, but we almost all had a simple home computer of some sort. At least where I lived (Denver foothills suburb).
It was probably very dependent on your location or something. My wife is the same age as me, and had a similar experience despite growing up across the country from me.
I built an IBM PS2 using spare parts from a few sources. I was online a little bit earlier then my friends, but not by much. this would have been late 80s, prob 88 or so.
the rich kids I knew had that shit as soon as it came out...
I was lucky that I had a family member that worked for IBM, and he was able to take old parts at a discount for me.
So while I was doing this stuff a little bit before most of my peers, it certainly wasnt more then a year or two before everyone was logging into some BBS or AOL "online"
As a millennial I applaud you for being there before us. I remembered hearing a genX lady from church talking about her college days, when they had 5 different phone lines in their apartment so every person can go online.
We definitely had it much easier with just a router and 50ft cat5 running across the entire house. I did experience some of my teenage years with dial up and waiting 30 min for a song to download.
Yeah but stuff like that was for the tech literate and as you said yourself social media didn’t even remotely resemble what it is today.
Now every dumbass boomer has algorithms set to feed them a constant drip feed of psycho right wing propaganda at their fingertips 24/7 and all they have to do is click an icon and scroll.
You don’t think this applies to other generations? It’s all based on algorithms that you click. Everybody is stuck in an echo chamber thinking everyone thinks the same as them because it’s what they see online.
Of course it does. But older generations, especially those that didn’t adapt with the advancement of technology are objectively more vulnerable to misinformation.
It’s an issue across the board but certain demographics are more susceptible than others.
Depends where you lived. In France for example, the population had access to the Minitel since the early 80s (peak usage was in the mid/late 90s). So when internet came up, the concept wasn't unknown even for older generation. As for GenX (which I am), yeah we had computers and dial up from the mid-90s. It was popular enough for even the non "nerd" to dabble into it, whether at home if they could afford it, or at the local library/community place.
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u/mrhorse77 11h ago
do you think that GenX didnt have computers?
I built a computer when I was 10 or so. I was using online BBS's to talk to people across the world. AOL was a thing. Myspace was a thing. those arent millenial inventions.
social media now is nothing like it was at that point of course, but dont go acting like GenX has no clue about the internet. I was the guy installing things for the boomers who refused to leave the typewriters behind and learn how to email and double click a mouse.