25 Things People Did Before The Internet You Won’t Believe

That’s right, they were physical books, and you actually did research papers by looking up the topic alphabetically.

There wasn’t Amazon. People had to look up relevant topics in the Yellow Pages and call up every single store to see if they carried whatever item was being sought.

There weren’t apps or GPS. People had to use paper maps. You looked up the street, it gave you the quadrant, and you’d have to figure out how to get there. Not to mention that you also had to figure out where exactly you were. Typically, this involved asking innocent bystanders.

You spent a lot of time waiting for people because you had to pre-plan your meetings. If someone didn’t show up…well, you wouldn’t know what happened to them.

At a store, the clerk would just use a machine that made a carbon copy of your credit card. It wouldn’t be charged until later.

Kids actually burned (made) custom music CD’s and sold them at school. Napster changed everything as nobody was used to having access to so much music!

Your home encyclopedias were fine for elementary school, even middle school. In high school and college though, you had to go to the library. And not all libraries were equal. Many times you had to go search out a bigger library just to get access to more scholarly books and information.

Although there were word processors and printers in the early 90’s, they weren’t common. Most people still had to write out their school assignments.

Why? Because you might need to use a payphone!

It’s true. Of course there were watches, but not everyone had them.

It would always take several weeks. You’d have to call the company, have the forms sent to you, fill them out, send them back, and receive confirmation. Each step took several days.

At least that’s what your teacher wanted you to do because you’d, “need it in the future.” Nobody knew that in a few years you would barely use a pencil to sign your own name.

You had to call his/her house and in all likelihood tell their parents that you wanted to speak to them. We know, it was terrifying…

And then you had to mail them.

You actually had to go to the store and leave your film there to have it developed. And then you could put your photos in a book and show them to your friends.

Want to watch that one cartoon you like? Well, you better tune in at 8:30 am on Saturday, otherwise you’re out of luck.

Back in the day you actually had to dial numbers on the telephone every time you wanted to call someone.

You read it every morning in something called a “newspaper” (yes, it was actual paper). After that, there wasn’t any news until 6 pm on TV.

People could actually make them without being mobbed by millions of people on twitter.

And parents didn’t always require their kids to “check in.” You just had to be home before dark. Sound fun? It was.

Instead of judging your popularity by the number of “likes” you receive, people judged their popularity by the number of messages people left them.

Like playing solitaire or minesweeper.

Because everything was on paper. Everything.

Dialogue was an art form.

Well, sort of. The fact is though, they knew that nobody was recording them or that they wouldn’t pop up in the background of some random strangers photograph and then have their face plastered all over billboards in foreign countries (and yes, that does happen). It also meant their mistakes wouldn’t follow them for their whole life…