In the early 90s, the Internet was brewing, waiting to be taken on and expanded. I was an early household adopter, having subscribed to Demon Internet in early 1995. I would be using it on my friend’s computer in 1994, for which ultimately led me to getting my own connection. I am quite proud to have been there at the start, using a slow modem and waiting for the shrill to die down in the Winsock box. Then, it was like a ‘hamster in a wheel’, slow and cumbersome. But the new tech was to behold. The realm of the nerds had been opened, and there was a select amount that took on the challenge.
The thing that was epic, was the fact that people were kind. You always had questionable actions and materials, but they didn’t really prey on the vulnerable. You made friends on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and made conversation around the world. I visited the USA due to meeting and getting close to a friend, from Michigan, in the chat rooms. I saw so many things all because I could trust who I was meeting. When I look back at it, my modern ideal is challenged by this. I was 19 and flew to Newark, New Jersey, to meet someone that could have been anybody, or simply not turned up. Through her, I found new friends over there and made quite the connections.
Now, where are we at? We must progress, less we stand still and leave nature to take over, but we can also see so many errors that have been made in the pursuit of a better online society. The writing was set down the moment that chat spaces were closed-up. Nefarious began the end of MSN Messenger (Microsoft Network), eventually turning to Skype. Children weren’t safe and we were at war with people we’d never met. When readin Wiki pages on this time, a lot of the background issues are kept quiet. What a shame, this was, and still is. Like much of that time, the media concentrated on the negatives of being only, but it was a far safer place than it is in the 2020s.
Once the masses joined in, there was a slew of individuals; it stands to reason that one in ten thousand will be a bad egg. It is a new technology, still. Compare the time it took for the car to take its place, although we could argue the positives and negatives of that, but the fact is that we are barely 30 years since its birth, and with that, I hope we can learn and be better guests on other people’s screens in the next thirty! I strongly believe that it was an inevitability, especially with the introduction of handheld computers. If there is one thing humans are good at, it is getting out of tight spots. I just wonder how tight it will get before the bad-element is ejected!
