What is your favorite online activity that the younger generation may take for granted?

I agree on the music, and not only that, but while you may think I’m a simpleton, it really amazes me that you can interact with people across the country or across the world, with a few clicks of a keyboard. If someone had predicted this to me 50 years ago, I’d have thought they were on some heavy drugs.

I can get a video of how to do almost anything I need to know how to do.

As well, I think its great that I can access old movies and TV shows online, many free of charge. I remember a night not to long ago, when my boss dropped by a site I was working and we some how got to talking old cowboy shows. It was cold outside, and we ended up drinking a couple of beers in his truck, and watching an old Lone Ranger show of his phone on you tube. Lmao. When his wife called to see where he was, he just told her, Oh, uh – I was just showing Cook some things about this new post. Yeah, right.

Having a bathroom break while windows 95 loads up.

Youtube is my passion most recently. I can listen to almost any music that strikes my fancy as well as the original video that goes with it. If I want to cook something different for dinner, I go to YT & there is somebody showing me step by step what to do. Hubby’s not home and I have a household emergency, I pop on to YT and there is a surefire fix for the problem and it’s fixed before my love gets home from work. My stove went out and I called a repairman. Problem, he couldn’t get me on his schedule for at least 4 days. Jumped on YT and I had it fixed before lunch the next day and I had no bill to pay.

I also love being able to get to know people from all over the world and all walks of life. Makes me thankful for everything I have and where I live

Being able to communicate with people anywhere, any time, no matter where you are yeah, I’m repeating Nomore :P. @Nomore, you think you’re a simpleton, but think about it: how many times you desperately need a friend’s help but they are miles away and you need to talk to them ASAP? How many old friends that moved away you would have lost touch with without the Internet? How anxious you were to wait for a reply for a letter you sent a week ago, wondering whether it had reached the receipient at all? It’s an incredibly amazing thing that not many young people appreciate.

And with the connectivity comes the opportunity to connect with strangers and convert them into friends like what I do on Fluther. A lot of people don’t think twice about it and just come to the Internet to troll and make other people miserable just because no one knows their identities. They completely devalue the gift of connectivity.

@Mimishu1995 Agree completely. Particularly as regards politics.

I think it’s how social media has replaced letter writing and phone calls, and keeping track of people’s phone numbers and addresses. When I was little, when we’d move or a friend would move, we’d have their address and possibly their phone number in an address book. If that book got lost we’d be up shit’s creek. It was very easy to lose track of people.

My mom would get the roll of film developed, and give one or two to my grandmother or I might give one to a friend. Now with social media, we just share photos with any and all people we know. Now with the phone, there’s no more developing photos and putting them in albums or keeping them in the envelopes they came in.

When I was little, my mom would call my grandmother or vice versa. When I was a young adult, I might spend an hour on the phone with a friend who lived in another county, and then the phone bill would come and it might be 8 or 10 dollars just for that call. Now we can follow each other on FB forever. We can pm each other or text each other. We see each other’s photos and comment and banter about them.

Oh, and I appreciate music and shows too. But you know what I appreciate even more? The ability to research. I don’t have to move out to know the details of what I want to know, and there is virtually no limit. From really trivial things like looking at old uniform to dress my character up as a patriot to big things like uncovering suspicious details of a shady company, I can’t imagine how I could accomplish these tasks without the Internet. Sure, I can go to a library or ask someone about things, but from my experience, there is a limit of what I can ask this way. Eventually people would just shake their heads and tell me to stop being ridiculous because my questions are just so insane.

BTW my research paper is 100% sponsored by the Internet, from the subject to the data :D

Being able to instantaneously get answers to questions I have.

@chyna @SEKA Great point, and good job saving money!

I also have a friend with a very popular youtube vlog and it was amazing to see her beautiful, intelligent face on my big screen last night via youtube.
What’s amazing is that this woman I’ve known most of my life, has had to hide bits of herself here, always, due to the Christian Conservative area. Since youtube fame, she is living her best life with an alias and a different look, showing her true nature via that forum.
I’m one of a very few people who she’s told about about and I feel so privelaged to know of her happiness and get to acknowledge her success, as well as her true nature, without judgement and with full support. I’ve never heard her as happy and excited as she was last night, when I gave her honest, positive feedback.

To me, that’s a minor miracle, when it comes to being your authentic self online. The nature of the medium allows you to be anyone you choose, look anyway you choose, and be from anywhere in the world.

@mimishu1995 Yes, the research and information available is amazing.
’‘So few grow, because so few study.’ – D. L. Moody

“I cant believe I got paid to drink a tall boy and watch Lone Ranger with my boss”...Me. I suppose there are a few perks for working for a bud.

I have to agree with music. The ability to discover “long tail” niche music is so incredible. I remember going to the cd store and gambling that I would like the CD I was about to buy—having never listened to it before. CD’s were a pretty solid financial commitment back then—It was like that with videogames too.