Do you remember life before the internet?

“Give me the simple life!” -Etta James

Greetings dearest gentle reader,

It is with a case of anxiety fueled insomnia that your author is coming at you 5 hours earlier than usual.

Contrary to the previous 147 daily prompts, this one actually has me intrigued.

Throughout my time on this planet there are a few things that in today’s society leave this elder millennial longing and rooted in depression.

I fully understand and embrace the fact that my Tide Wine generation was essential raised to birth what we are calling society today.

The internet entered your authors life at the age of 7. Back then, it was more of a giant LAN party of atrociously large stand alone blood pressure machines attending Apples annual masquerade ball.

Before the endearing screech of “YOUVE GOT MAIL!”, people actually depended on outdoor social activities for community.

I know. I know!

Today’s society (post Covid) is not too far off Fallout!

I remember the day my mother banned the evening news during dinner. It was like someone had died in our house.

Pre-virtual wasteland, families actually owned dining room tables.

I know, that’s fucking crazy right.

But you know what’s even crazier?

We all sat around the table together as a family, ate a meal that didn’t cost half of your weekly earnings and recounted our days, collectively.

Pre-waste of time, people were allowed to be their genuine selves without the complication of trying to impress all of insta.

Relationships and networking relied on honesty and communication.

Fast forward.

I wonder, will you leave a comment as to the last time you noticed a couple out in public eating and you didn’t see a phone on the table or in one of their hands?

Or how about the last time you noticed someone purposely end a phone call, or pause said phone call to recognize and interact with the cashier working the checkout.

To be completely honest, your author would be still be filling 5 subject notebooks in a months time even if the internet never came to be.

Instead. Y’all are sitting here viewing every plainly typed letter in whatever insignificant font some happiness engineer coded into the program- all for the purpose of your author hoping that someone in this wide world will notice that she isn’t invisible.

Personally, I’d struggle without the connivence to hide my neurodivergence blanks. But I would gladly go back to a world of real connections.

Anytime.