Monday, April 23, 2007

How long have you been online?

I remember exactly when I started surfing the web. It was my junior year of high school and I had to do a paper on African American Month. We’d had internet in my house for quite some time but were unsure how to use it! LOL It took me like 20 minutes to connect and then 20 more to log on to IE and AltaVista—yeah, didn’t know there were better search engines out there LOL. Wait, or maybe there weren’t? For months after that (perhaps even years?) my internet routine was quite boring: Hotmail and Yahoo search.

With the new millennium, things changed for me, HURRAH! I moved to Italy for some months and friends recommended MSN MSGR as a way to keep in touch with my family. I also started reading the news online, and emailing became like keeping a diary.

Then, later in 2001, finding an author’s BB changed my whole perception of online communication. I loved it there. I was in awe that you could actually become friends with strangers on the WWW. Who knew? LOL From there on things took a life of their own—a much interesting and fascinating one, thank god!

What about you guys, how did your online life start?

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20 comment(s):

Blogger Marg said...

I've been online for about 4 years now. It took me a little while to get active, but once I started you couldnt stop me!

4/23/2007 04:59:00 PM  

Blogger M.Amanda said...

Interesting question.

I first used the internet in high school. My access was very limited, so I only did schoolwork-related searches. However, a couple years later I went to college where I spent A LOT of time in the computer lab where they had super-fast connections and almost unlimited access. Yee haw! I was off. I spent a lot of time in chat rooms.

After college, I got tired of chat rooms and entertained myself during slow times at work with celebrity gossip, movie reviews, and news. Eventually, I started buying merchandise and conducting other business online. Two years ago, I discovered blogging and now I am hooked.

There's no going back for me!

4/23/2007 05:03:00 PM  

Blogger Vanessa said...

High school. It was very confusing in the beginning but I just usually do emails anyway, lol. I discovered messenger way later and I've been addicted ever since.

I don't think I can live without internet connection. These day and age, you're pretty much cut off the world without it. The news is on line, your friends who are away, every information you need, shopping, everything is on line!

4/23/2007 05:56:00 PM  

Blogger Danielle De Barbarac said...

I think I've been online since high school but I'm not sure. It feels like I've been online forever!

Three years ago, I took a job in California and emailing and instant messaging had been like an air for me. Isn't it amazing that now you can have long-distance calls through messenger?

4/23/2007 06:30:00 PM  

Blogger Ladybug said...

Probably five years ago. Thank god for fast connection because slow broadband sucks!

I don't use IM very often but I'm an email slut, LOL.

4/23/2007 06:59:00 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You know, I don't think I can remember. I must have been around twelve though, so it's been forever since then. My use of the internet since has been very changing: sometimes I'm online all day, and sometimes I'm not on at all. Most of the time, it's somewhere in between, though I probably spend too much time online, with blogging, web design, play by post RPGs, chatting, emailing and so on and so forth.

4/23/2007 07:40:00 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said...

18... when I was required to have a laptop for college and was introduced to the lovely world of the T3 connection. Plus EVERYONE on campus had AIM. It was a wrap at that point. I was addicted.

-Kai

4/23/2007 07:50:00 PM  

Blogger Isabella said...

LOL. The same as Kai. When you finally have your own laptop and you have a fast connection, internet addicted is bound to happen.

4/23/2007 08:01:00 PM  

Blogger KimmyGoat said...

Christmas 1995 - internet access was a "family" present. I was 17 - senior year of high school. We used Mosaic to surf! I only had 3 email friends, and one of them lived one block away!

4/23/2007 08:58:00 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I believe it was March 1994, maybe even earlier. I think that was when I bought my blazing fast, state of the art 120mhz Micron running Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. I can't remember if I was online before that though. Actually, I'm still using that old dinosaur to telecommute- hey, it still works and has always been a helluva lot more reliable than ANY later version of Windows- including Vista that I'm using on my laptop!

I remember also that later when Windows 95 was released, email didn't work between Windows 3.11 and MSN.com/Windows 95. This made Ebay purchases soooo much fun!

4/23/2007 10:13:00 PM  

Blogger ... said...

I don't think I was really online until 2002 or 2003. I had email a little while before that, but that was pretty much all I used the internets for. It was rather late, now that I think about it, but like with all my other obsessions, I fell quite thoroughly and now can't seem to get off the 'web.

4/24/2007 02:21:00 AM  

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can't remember when exactly did I start using the net. At first it was only for e-mails and then I got hooked on yahoo messenger!

I tell you one thing, I can't live without my net connection.

4/24/2007 11:09:00 AM  

Blogger Jordis Juice said...

1995? Because I remember using Window 95.

I'm sure the reason I got online was school, I guess a project of something. I do remember that I had to wait for like 15 minutes before I could connect. LOL

4/24/2007 11:22:00 AM  

Blogger Harlot said...

I honestly can't remember. :/ Probably when i was a senior in HS? What i remember is our soooooo slooooooooow connection before that used to drive me nuts! It took 5 minutes to load each freaking page!

During college, a dear friend left to live in the US and that's the time i started to appreciate being online. It's mostly emails (i love receiving letters from friends, HATE HATE the forwarded stuff ugh) and then Trollop taught me how to use MSGR. I would go nuts without it! I use it to pester BF when he's at work LOL, and to bug Trollop whenever i want. Well, really, what would Trollop do without me. :P

4/24/2007 11:47:00 AM  

Blogger Lorelei said...

During high school and I used Altavista too, lol! I don't use instant messaging as much as I email. These days, this blog is one of the reasons why I'm hooked online ;)

4/24/2007 04:25:00 PM  

Blogger Kiah-Monique said...

i started in middel school and i dont even think i knew what a search engine was.

4/24/2007 05:54:00 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I started years ago using email and search engines through workplaces. Blogging I've only been doing a couple of years (I have 2 of those - one on blogger and one on Yahoo 360) and have just started using Paltalk to chat with friends and enter music rooms where they sing and/or play music. Great fun. I love the Gmail and instant email services that you can get now. Can you believe how sloooooooooow internet connections used to be ... lol!

4/24/2007 11:56:00 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said...

In elementary school (eight, nine years ago?) where I discovered a forum -- I've been going through forums for sooo long.

I remember using dogpile and then switched to google b/c it was fun to say. And then google took over everything.

4/25/2007 03:11:00 AM  

Blogger Jolie said...

Seven years I go I think. It's just emails, IMs, visiting some interesting websites and then blogs started sprouting all over the place you can't help joining in the fun too.

4/25/2007 03:17:00 AM  

Blogger Lollie Rose said...

I've been online for about 4 years, very late I know. I started using it because I was looking for books. The same reason I discovered this fab blog. :)

I'm with Aggie, I love Gmail. I think it's the best email service out there. Very organized!

4/25/2007 03:31:00 AM