Before Broadband Internet, What Was the World Doing?

With the ubiquity of broadband internet, it is hard to picture what the world was like before it dominated almost every aspect of our living cell. Maybe you were born the age before broadband or maybe you never cared that much about the World Wide Web, but what was the world doing pre-internet era?
If you wanted to have a good laugh…
You need to flip through channels on the TV. Is Australia’s Funniest Home Videos on yet? Is Hey Hey, It’s Saturday already airing?
Today, all one needs to do is to open the web browser, load YouTube and look for funny videos. You can even stream your favourite comedy series that is assuming your TV went straight to TV heaven already.
If you wanted an autograph from your favourite actor or artist…
You have to go to mall shows, attend concert tours and hope with all your might that they can spare 10 minutes of their time for autograph signing. You also need to read ‘How to Survive a Mob for Dummies’ to get through the crowd alive.
Today, you just need to make an attention-seeking Tweet, gather all your Twitter friends to retweet it and pray overnight that your favourite actor or artist sees it and replies to it with a simple ‘Thanks.” You don’t even have to line up at mall shows, concert tours and bring your mob survival guide with you all thanks to Twitter.
If you want to listen to your favourite songs…
You have to buy the cassette tape or the CD if you have the extra dollars for it. You can also open your radio to catch it or turn the channel to MTV with hopes that your music video request gets played.
Today, just open up Pandora, Last.fm or SoundCloud on your web browser and listen to all the songs you like – for free. And if you want to buy original copies of your favourite songs or albums, just go to iTunes and you can have your music playing instantly on your Apple device of choice.
If you want to stand up for a good cause…
You join mass organisations, rallies and protests and echo the sentiments of the cause you are supporting by screaming at the perceived antagonists.
Now, just ‘like’ or share the Facebook page that you are advocating and that counts as a support already. No tear gases to shield your eyes from or no stampedes you need to outwit.
Life may be ‘easier’ now, but for people born in the pre-internet era, life will never ever be the same as it is today. Even with the internet continuously shaping our lives for the better (or for worse?), it all boils down to the traditions that we still want to keep alive and the practices that we’d like to extinguish altogether because life with broadband internet is so much better than that.