# Gen Xers and older millennials really just want to go back in time to before the internet existed

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gen-xers-and-older-millennials-really-just-want-to-go-back-in-time-to-before-the-internet-existed/985764>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [June 19, 2023, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gen-xers-and-older-millennials-really-just-want-to-go-back-in-time-to-before-the-internet-existed/985764 "2023-06-19T05:37:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 19

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2023, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gen-xers-and-older-millennials-really-just-want-to-go-back-in-time-to-before-the-internet-existed/985764/19 "2023-06-19T10:40:19Z")

</div>

> [@Toxylon](#):
>
> There are untold masses of books / reports / documents / articles etc. that aren’t on the internet, and likely never will be digitized.

And similarly untold masses that are and wouldn’t realistically be accessible to the ordinary person otherwise. If, for example, I’m trying to track down a short story I remember reading 30 years ago in an old copy of _The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction_ that was printed 20 years before that, [I can ask the Dope and get an answer within hours](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-yet-another-sci-fi-short-story/806131), and with a little Googling find the complete text.

Trying to accomplish that same task in 1990 would have probably been impossible.

(On a side note, there’s something deeply ironic about using an online message board to argue that life would be better without the internet.)

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gen-xers-and-older-millennials-really-just-want-to-go-back-in-time-to-before-the-internet-existed/985764)._