What year did you start using the internet regularly?

Post Reply New Topic

I just had some thoughts about how much the internet has changed our life and how quickly it went from almost completely unheard of and unknown of in the early 1990s to a taken-for granted part of every day life by 2000 (for me and most people I know anyway).

What year did you start using the internet on a regular basis? (I realize this poll may not make sense to the younger WP members some of whom grew using the internet from a very young age)

FYI- I started going online in 1996 (first heard of it in 1993 but then it was called the information superhighway and the concept seemed alien to me)


Allie Kat
http://www.myaspergerslifestory.com/

I started using the Internet regularly in '02. I was 11 years old at the time. I mostly visited websites about my special interest at the time, which was Hamtaro.

1993

We didn't have the net or a computer here till right after I graduated high-school in 2001. Only net available here then was dial-up AKA cr@p-up. I bought my own comp in November of 2002 shortly after we got cable net

From the poll so far it seems like a U shaped distribution rather than the typical bell curve. Most of the people I know IRL started going online between 1996 and 1999. On here, I'm the only one who voted during this range; so far, the others who have voted started using it earlier than average (1994 or earlier) or later than average (2001 or later). I wonder if it's an Aspie thing or just a statistical anomaly.

Only time will tell as the poll keeps running...........

early 90's sometime, i think 1993 or 1992. It comes from living in a rural outback community, we used it for email. I was in year 2 or around that and only lived there for 6 months.

I then didn't use it again until 1995 or 96 when i was in year 5 and doing some high school topics.

I have another theory on why Aspies over 30 can also fit this "U shaped" distribution instead of the normal "Bell Curve"

1) they could be very tech savvy if computers are one of their obsessions so they were going online way back when most people didn't even know the internet existed. OR 2) they could be the opposite and very afraid of computers or indifferent to them if they didn't use them already; Some Aspies are very resistant to change and might have thought, "why should I learn newfangled internet thing" and weren't influenced by seeing all their peers going online in the late 1990s when it was the "trendy" thing to do.


Just a theory but we'll see if the poll results changed to a more bell shape curve in a couple days after more people have voted.

I'm 37, but didn't start using the internet regularly until about 2005, when I got my first computer. I had used computers for work, but that was just intranet, the company website, customer accounts, payroll programme, that sort of thing. I didn't go on the internet properly until 2005. I'm not a technological person, it took me a very long time to get a mobile phone, even when I needed one, and I don't keep up to date with technology at all. I think in many ways I still feel like a teenager, and we didn't have that sort of thing in the 80s. Yes, I don't like change.

I can't even remember. I started using a computer around 1999 maybe, but I wouldn't have used the internet for a few years after that.
I didn't vote because I would be guessing if I chose one.

My first Usenet posting was in the middle of 1992, so I put that as my start date.

The first time that I started using the Internet was the December of 1997. That was a strange year for me, all around.

October 1998. I went from being nervous about computers and the web, to having web technologies as a special interest. I also met my partner on the web, so I owe it a lot

'94, it seemed such an odd concept, despite growing up with home computers.

1988, back when minicomputer operating systems came on quarter inch cassette tapes. (Ooog... Dating myself.)

Eee... started using computers when I was about three (1998), but I can't really remember when I started using the Internet regularly... maybe when I was 7 or 8, so around '03.