When did you start using the internet?

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 42,207]

I think I was around 10 or 11 when I first used the internet, we had dial up at the time. Those were magical days. Looking back I definitely did not appreciate the internet like I should have. We got a new service again years later and that is when I majorly started using it. Now, the internet is pretty much my other life. 

[Alex Z 850]

I started when I was 5 years old. I started using it regularly when I was 11.

[EddG 554]

About 2 or 3 years old on Yahooligans and those AOL kids section.

[Gearbox10mm 794]

It must have been some time in the late 90's. It was single line dial up and we would use those free NetZero CDs you got in the mail for a set amount of free internet every month. 

 

It was off and on like that using crappy dial up and sporadic month long subscriptions until we finally got a, more or less, permanent connection via satellite in 2010.

 

Our connection quality has come a long way even since then. Used to be, if I wanted to watch a long youtube video I'd have to let it load for a couple hours or even overnight before the whole thing would play. Now it's pretty much instant with almost no lag time.

 

When the internet's infrastructure matures to the point were everyone, no matter where they live, can access high speed internet as easily as satellite TV/cable, televisions days will be numbered. I'm calling it now, we will see the death of television as we know it in our lifetimes.            

[Dynamo Pad 11,906]

1. I started using the internet back around 2001 when I was 9 years old. 2. No. 3. Yes, I am very addicted. 4. Yes, a lot of my friends showed me things on the internet that has scarred me when I was younger. 5. No. 6. I remember when I was around 14 or 15 years old, I was on YouTube watching Kingdom Hearts 2 abridged videos. My dad walked into my room and was wondering what I was watching. After showing him he told me not to watch those videos again, told my mom, and my mom and I laughed at my dad's reaction to everything. 

[SparklingSwirls 21,607]

I started using a computer when I was around 5 or 6; I think, but back then I only used the computer to play software games. I don't think I started using the internet itself until I was around 8 or 9. I mostly went to kid-friendly websites with games for younger kids, but sometimes I'd look up stuff on the Yahoo! search engine.

 

It wasn't until I was 12 or so that I started posting on websites and talking to people online.

 

As for the other questions:

2. Nah

3. Yes...

4. Yeah, a bit

5. Yes, some things shouldn't be shown to younger kids.

6. Probably

[ARagY 1,153]

I was introduced at a very young age to the internet. About 5. Back then we had what, Windows 98? Those big floppy disks. I thought the normal way to access the internet was through window explorer (as in clicking start menu, documents, then typing www.google.com) for a whole year or so. After that things started to get into place. When I was 7-8 I was learning to type using QWERTY/QWERTZ keyboards, although you could opt for the French AZERTY (which was only useful if French was your opted language of instruction). Since then I've been getting better and better at typing and now my consistent speed is about 150 wpm. It's dropped a bit since I have no real practice or need to type much faster. 

 

But anyway, I've seen a lot of things on the internet since my time here. Lots of weird people, weird videos, weird images, and the pornography that is and was littered across every inch of the "shadier" websites you may visit. The internet has become an important part of my life, but wasn't really much so until I was about 11, when I started to take gaming more seriously and got involved in online communities. Now, it's taken over my life and I'm usually on here doing something rather than outside. I've made a lot of friends on here and so I can't really say I regret much.

[Peppermint Larry 203]

I would always play around on the computer since I was perhaps four. That was mostly playing on MS Paint and whatnot, though.  I'd say when I was perhaps 8, I would spend my time on the computer watching videos on YouTube. I always thought the internet was a positive influence for younger me- I'd watch Mystery Guitar Man back when he first started out, and Jacksfilms was another channel younger me would watch. These things, while perhaps not completely ideal for youngsters (Jack), did inspire me to get into video editing and other various projects. 

 

My grandfather that raised me actually encouraged me to use the internet- when I was in 4th grade, he went ahead and set me up a blogspot account- I didn't even ask for one. I was into writing and blogging for a short time. I'd say I wouldn't be where I am today without that.

 

Continuing these projects when school would allow me, in fifth or sixth grade I actually started talking to friends (that I already knew in real life because I'm a good child). 

 

I'd say that the younger me was in good hands. I never came across anything I didn't want to see simply because YouTube has restrictions and such. I was never on websites I didn't fully know. I knew better than to click on random crap and talk to random strangers. I never had to have an adult tell me to not do these things. 

 

I'd say that I'm not for censorship. Youngsters ought to know better than to mindlessly wander, and if they aren't, parents can set restrictions. Nothing really offends me, either- I hear these stories about how these sites take down pictures of babies being breastfed and mastectomy scars, and I think it's ridiculous. If it's not of a sexual nature, nudity doesn't bother me. Cursing has never offended me, now and back then, simply because every single adult in my life cursed anyways. Cartoon/fictional violence never bothered me because its not real, and only mindless cattle recreate scenes in real life. In short, I don't believe that we should make the whole internet "baby friendly". So long as kids have brains and sense, and depending on where they go with it, they can pick up a lot of skills and interests.

[Sweet Dreams 1,893]

I think I have been using it since I was around seven. I have no regrets about that tbh. Sometimes it does interfere with schoolwork, but I would have found another way to procrastinate anyway. Besides, I love being able to talk to people online.

[Sekr Gray 521]

 

When did you start using the internet?

I started using the internet around 4 grade (roughly age 10). I was mostly doing personal research, having exhausted my school library, but soon got in an MMO, and later internet culture.

 

 

Would you have rather started using the internet at another age?

Much sooner, if I could. I'd be much better about certain things, and I may have been influenced to do my art earlier. 

 

 

Are you addicted?

Do sailors curse? 

 

 

Anything you wish you could have unseen?

Yes. I used 4chan. 'nuff said. 

 

 

Are you for censorship?

Only in the fact we should have parental guidance more. Most parents either don't care about what the child does online, or is so incompetent they don't know what the child is doing. More than once I've shown my family something online when they asked what I was laughing at, and it's often so obscure in a design/code reference, the joke is lost by the time I've helped them see what to do to navigate the sites. If we had competent, caring parents, we won't need anything like censorship.

 

 

Any funny internet stories?

Sadly, nothing yet, excluding maybe these forums, and my picking on the admins

[NotInUseAnymore997 204]

idk, probably when i found out how to use a computer. I started gaming when i was 6 or 7, my first game system being a gameboy advance, i want to buy one so fucking bad

[Nsxile 29,278]

I used the internet as early as 2005  

[The Historian 518]

I started way back in the day when the Internet was little more than a curiosity, rather than an integral part of life. Mid to late 1996 is when I started browsing on good ol' dial up.

[Tacodidra 61,942]

The first time I remember using the internet (and a computer in general) was when I was seven – my grandparents had just got a computer then. It was around a year before we got ours.

As impossible as it is for me to imagine life without the internet now, I'm glad I got to experience an early childhood without it. How simple everything was in comparison, and there was still a lot to enjoy about it. And a little later, it was fascinating to experience how the internet changed – faster connections, the appearance of YouTube and other video streaming sites... A lot of things that were unimaginable once, and now we already take them for granted...

Edited May 22, 2019 by Tacodidra

[Lucky Bolt 35,250]

My parents had dial up back when dial up was a thing, but I don't remember when they got regular internet exactly. 

I know that I didn't start using internet until about 2010. 

[Rebel the Wolfgirl 5,616]

My earliest internet memory was around 2000 or so (when I was maybe 2) and first saw the "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" video. Didn't start using the net regularly until I was around 5 or 6.

[TheRockARooster 55,351]

I started using the internet in 2005 when I always looked up results on wrestling.

 

I had the old dial-up back then and it was a real pain in the butt. 

[Treeglow Flicker 14,501]

Somewhere in my late teens.

[Sunlight Glisten 369]

I liked those questions. I teach my classes about internet addiction and how it has changed the way our brains process information; the research is in and it is for the worse. 

So many things I wish I could unsee. Yet at the same time I very strongly believe in freedom of information and Edward Snowdon is my hero. So censorship is a no go for me. Its an interesting juxtaposition.

[PinkiePie97 913]

I remember using the internet when I was 4, though it's possible I was using it earlier, as I remember very little from before then. At the time, I just went on the PBS Kids, Playhouse Disney, Nick Jr., and Noggin websites.

[Envy 6,483]

I don't know when exactly I started using the internet. I know it had to have been by 2000, because I remember seeing online the Pokemon of Gold/Silver before they were released in the west. I think I was probably using the internet in 1999, that's probably where it started. So I was 10/11. My parents were really scared about me using the internet, though and I remember I wasn't allowed to join my first forum until 2003. (Not too unreasonable considering I was 14 and most forums - back then, at least, I don't know about anymore? - required you to be 13 to sign up)

In 2004, we got high-speed internet and I got my own PC in my room and I've been addicted ever since. lol. The internet was always the neatest thing ever to me back in the early 00s. It seemed like such a luxury that had to be limited (we couldn't have it on for long because the home phone line was blocked when it was online. Lol dial-up). So when high-speed internet came around and it was unlimited, I was done for.

[PinkiePie97 913]

32 minutes ago, Envy said:

Not too unreasonable considering I was 14 and most forums - back then, at least, I don't know about anymore? - required you to be 13 to sign up

That's still the case with forums and websites in general. It's due to legal reasons.

https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-reform-proceedings/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule

[Envy 6,483]

12 minutes ago, PinkiePie97 said:

That's still the case with forums and websites in general. It's due to legal reasons.

https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-reform-proceedings/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule

I just noticed that some websites I'm on tend to have children or at least teenagers that said that they joined when they were like 10 or 11, so I thought things had changed. I guess people are just breaking the rules and are not afraid to express it.

[GiFTGewEhrSCHutzen-4 8,834]

I think I started around the age of 10-11. Though, I was new in using the internet and the interface was different. 

[TBD 17,276]

I don’t remember... age 10-12? is my best guess.