# How did you communicate before there was internet?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [November 21, 2004, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990 "2004-11-21T21:55:41Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@gum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gum)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2004, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/1 "2004-11-21T21:55:41Z")
How did you communicate before there was internet?
I don’t mean with your SO, friends and family. But how did you talk to strangers? What if you _needed_ to get something off your chest? Who[m] did you talk to?
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2004, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/2 "2004-11-21T21:59:05Z")
I guess I internalised more often, or perhaps bored more people in bars.
Did we used to socialise more? I can’t remember.
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### Author:  [@Jennyrosity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennyrosity)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2004, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/3 "2004-11-21T22:02:39Z")
I spent more time in pubs and clubs, or at parties, and I was usually drunk and/or stoned, which makes talking to strangers/philosophising/mouthing off about all kinds of random stuff considerably easier! But I was younger then…
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2004, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/4 "2004-11-21T22:16:58Z")
I talked to other kids in the playground 😃
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2004, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/5 "2004-11-21T22:18:43Z")
Oh, and the number of urban legends I believed. Sheesh.
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### Author:  [@Berkut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Berkut)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2004, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/6 "2004-11-21T22:21:38Z")
Bulletin Board Systems filled my need for anonymous electronic communication.
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### Author:  [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2004, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/7 "2004-11-21T22:33:33Z")
I’m only 22 and have been online since right before I turned 18 so I was still living at home before the 'net. If I needed to talk about something, I either talked to my best friend, my parents, or my aunt, who I consider a second mom. On rare occasions, I sometimes confided in my sister but she’s a gossip and I quickly learned to stop that.
I never kept a journal and didn’t have any friends outside of school or work so I mostly internalized though.
Nowadays, if I have something that’s bothering me, I post it in a filtered livejournal entry.
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### Author:  [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2004, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/8 "2004-11-22T00:16:50Z")
> [@gum](#):
>
> How did you communicate before there was internet?
I didn’t.
Hell, I still don’t.
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### Author:  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2004, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/9 "2004-11-22T00:23:12Z")
Letter. Cabe. Telephone. SHOUTING REALLY LOUDLY!
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### Author:  [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2004, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/10 "2004-11-22T00:42:15Z")
Before internet? What blasphemy is this? There was nothing before the internet!
In all seriousness…I don’t know. I’m still quite young, and internet started becoming common (at least at school) when I hit my teens–when I was the most socially awkward–I had literally no friends–and the most shy. So I didn’t talk to people much. I don’t even have any cousins near my age, the closest who lives nearby is four years older than me.
Actually, I don’t think much has changed since then. Only I actually have a couple RL friends now. But I’m as shy as ever.
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### Author:  [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2004, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/11 "2004-11-22T00:46:25Z")
Telephone . . . Long letters to friends (I still have half-a-dozen or so regular correspondents) . . . I had a magazine column through much of ther '90s I used to babble and vent . . .
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### Author:  [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2004, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/12 "2004-11-22T00:46:39Z")
I’ve been online since I was 16… before that, the world didn’t exist outside my circle of friends, and we spoke, like many teenaged girls, on the phone, incessantly.
I never handwrote letters, ever, unless it was a school assignment, since there has always been a computer in the house since I was born. _Always_. This is probably why my handwriting is so atrocious.
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### Author:  [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2004, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/13 "2004-11-22T02:03:10Z")
I wrote letters to the editor a lot. Wrote to my congressfools, too. Those who cared to could go to city council meetings and express opinions, and they still do. Some activists would stand on street corners and pass out leaflets. Another way is to talk to a newspaper reporter and persuade him you had something the public should know. That usually didn’t work, but sometimes it would.
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### Author:  [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2004, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/14 "2004-11-22T02:34:44Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#):
>
> I talked to other kids in the playground 😃
What he said.
I asked my parents, who were in their playground years _way_ before the internet. They went to parties, bars, coffee shops more, just hung out around people. In real life, too! I’m amazed…
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### Author:  [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2004, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/15 "2004-11-22T09:58:24Z")
“Hey, Maw! Git off the dang roof!” {Cletus the slack-jawed yokel}
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### Author:  [@blinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blinx)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2004, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-communicate-before-there-was-internet/275990/16 "2004-11-22T12:45:49Z")
I used FidoNet.