Before social networks consumed us, what did you use the internet for?

I used to use it all the time for information, rather than going to a library

Obtaining information, I still use the internet mostly for information.

I use the Internet for information purposes mainly, paying bills, and shopping etc
Fluther is the only ‘social’ place I participate in. Dont do facebook, twitter or any of that stuff (god that makes me seem dull… but hey ho).

Looking up information. Doing research for homework. Reading about my favourite bands and musicians. Reading fiction (fanfiction or otherwise). Playing online games.

Porn.~

Another vote for porn.

E-mail and information. I also was very active in one or two Usenet groups, so I guess I was using it for social networking.

I used to actually get work off the Internet, but I don’t anymore. Oh, and there was the porn.

E-mail and school work.

Porn. I still use it for that. I do not use social networks. They are the plague of the internet

Homework and research projects

@ragingloli Look around, you’re on one now.

I barely used the Internet. I believe I used it every two or three weeks to check my myspace and play yahoo games for like 20 minutes. I might go back to doing that.

@ducky_dnl MySpace is a social network.

@J0E
I do not consider fluther a social network.

What I use it for today: research.

Porn, work, news and research.

I sixth porn!

I used to belong to a multitude of email groups, which served pretty much the same function for me that forums do now.

comedy videos, Suck Magazine, Fametracker (which are both, alas, no more), Plastic (which, alas, isn’t what it once was) and McSweeny’s.

Email, work, research. Fluther is as close to a social network as i come. No Faceyspace or Mybook for me. Oh, and I’d be lying if I didn’t include occasional porn. ;-)

Good question….I can barely even remember the internet before social networking.

Looking up inappropriate things was ALL we did when the internet hit our town…we would gather at my friend’s house and type in “penis” or “doing it” into that AOL search and giggle our dumb heads off. We were 28.
Or 16,same/same.

Sharing photos, looking at pictures, finding information, keeping my house full of teens busy, being a homemaker while my computer wizard husband brought in tons of money.

Before the WWW, we had email, usenet, and anonymous ftp.

Piracy, looking up info, looking up how to make bombs and napalm, i think back in the 90’s probably everyone had a look at the anarchists cook book. I also used to look up a lot of jokes, and, even do “social networking”. I think that existed as soon as the internet was created. Sure, it was all chat rooms and emails, but there was a social element to it very early on. If i had to guess, i would say IRC was even more big back then than it is now. Back in the 90’s on mIRC there where almost entire empires of chat rooms to be found.

looking for animation footage of “Reboot” while in class

I use it for access to an online dictionary, porn, news, videos, movie and tv show research, email, TV listings, online calendar, image uploading, lottery results, buying stuff I can’t find at land stores, getting driving directions, checking my credit union account balances/activity, converting music videos to MP3’s, and other research.

Movie and video game news, when I didn’t have enough money for magazines. And Io and behold, I still do!

What the hell are magazines, anyway?

Fun in all the ways. Especially downloading movies that I can’t find anymore on tape or DVD.