First, I apologize if this has been done before. It seems like a natural question to ask but I came up empty-handed when I did a search to see if this question had been asked here previously. So, with that out of the way, I ask:
For how long have you been using the internet?
For the purposes of this poll, let’s define “using the internet” to include sendiing/receiving e-mail, and, of course, absolutely any use of the web whether from home, work, school, or wherever.
I’ve been using the net since late 1996 - the thing that stands out most in my mind regarding my first ventures onto it, was the high frequency - the very high rate - of crashes of computer crashes, screen freezes, etc., that I endured early on. In part, that was a function of the primitive version of Windows I was using at the time (which had most definitely not been optimized for web browsing!) but in large part simply reflected the gawd-awful quality (technically and aesthetically) of many early sites. That I persisted, despite those frustrations, was testimony to the wonderful world that was opening before me.
I was first “online” in 1984 or so, using an acoustic coupler modem to access databases at the University of Wisconsin, as part of my work-study job in college. But, that’s not the Internet.
When I got my first real job in 1989, we had a computer system (Metaphor) which let us send e-mails to each other within the company, but e-mail didn’t leave our local server. Still doesn’t technically count, as per the OP.
I got my first PC in 1993, and first truly went online (using America Online) in 1994. I still have that AOL e-mail address, just because of inertia.
Innumerable BBSs with my Commodore 64 from the mid-80s on. I had a Prodigy account (and got my first set of luggage and a nice VCR from them—we sold subscriptions from my Software, Etc. store) and access to Compuserve after that. I got an email account and access to the Web via the Lynx browser in 1993 when I went back to school/college.
I remember getting email at work around 1994. We also tried selling things on line with modest success. I believe CompuServe offered email for $0.10 per email around the same time, maybe a year or two earlier.
I think I was signed up for an email and encountered my first foray into building websites in 1997, but did not become an avid user until 1998.
My parents had no idea when I found chat rooms at the ripe old age of…11.
Believe me, I got up to quite a bit of stuff beyond my age level without them ever knowing. I made a website about our cats (back when you could get free hosting) and showed them fan sites for Sailor Moon and Pokemon, and that was the face of the internet to them.
I didn’t have regular internet access until 2001. In the meantime I would get on the internet at the library and also on my mother’s work computer after business hours.
I spent some time a few years ago on textfiles.com learning about BBSs and wished I had the chance to experience that.
ETA: Due to the dates listed above, I think KarlGauss may be conflating the internet with the world wide web. My first use of the internet also happened to be my first use of the world wide web so it was an easy answer for me either way.
I started using the Internet in 1990 or 1991 while working for a university in Australia. (Before 1989 there was really no access to the Internet from Australia.) There’s an Internet discussion list that I’ve new belonged to for over 22 years, through about 6 different email addresses.
Aw, I clicked the wrong button. Voted 1999-2000, meant 1997-1998. I distinctly recall using what people referred to as a “search engine” in the library at school and kept wondering why they would call it that.
I was using BBS’s in the 80’s but they weren’t linked together as the “internet”. So my first real internet use was when I went to college in 1991 and received an email address and Usenet access then later IRC and the two computers in the dorm lab with Mozilla on them.
I used e-mail back in 1992, and then I think I started using FTP, Gopher, and Usenet in 1993, with Lynx around that time as well. Thinking about that, I find defining the Internet as meaning “e-mail or the web” to be kind of funny.
I was sending email across the country starting in 1976 as a freshman in Engineering school. We didn’t call it “the internet” then, but it was a linked system of academic computer networks, so I’d say it counts.
Well, color me impressed! I was confident that there would be some Dopers who were early users, but had no idea just how many. Indeed, as of now, half of the respondents got onto the net before 1995. That is so cool! Way ahead of the pack!
And, ‘yes’, Macca26, I am, in fact, using the terms “internet” and “web” interchangeably - shows what I don’t know.
I have had an email since around 1992, was using IRC around that time as well. I remember when some of the first web pages were coming up in the mid 90s. Hell I was ordering CDs off of gopher servers in college, the only way to get a lot of CDs at the time.
Based on the OP’s definition, I’ve been on the Internet since around 1982, because that’s when I first started using email. Of course, that wasn’t actually the Internet and the email server was strictly in-house. I used CompuServe, Prodigy, the Well, and AOL before they were connected to the Internet, and a whole slew of BBS’s.
But actual “Internet” connectivity didn’t come until early 1995 for me.
Come on people - using a modem to dial into a BBS or (80’s) Compuserve or whatever is not the same as being on the internet – you’re dialing into a private network.
