October 15, 2010
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How Long Have You Been On the Internet?
I was never on the Internet until about 6 years ago. It is sort of funny to me that my job is to spend all day on the Internet marketing when I always feel so new to the Internet.
I had probably visited the Internet about 5-6 times before I started my xanga site in December of 2004.How long have you been on the Internet?
Comments (133)
I was introduced to the internet when I started college in 98.
waddaya mean…I am the internet.
Since I was knee high to a grasshopper.
On a IBM 386, using the brand new windows 95 and AOL 2.0 just came out.
i’ve been on the internet since 2002ish? first introduced to xanga in 2004 at a tech-y summer camp
Since 1998 too. I think I’ll take a break for some food now!
Since January 2008. PC access a month later.
Back when dial-up connection was all the hype.
Since the beginning of time..
no seriously..when I was younger.. Don’t know what age..but it’s been awhile. A long while.
Shoot I don’t know. A long time.
Sometime over 6 years, I’m not really sure how long.
I think it was 1996 or so, but I didn’t do much on the internet until I went to college in 2004 (and joined Xanga and Facebook in 2005).
since the 6th grade, 2003.
It has been 9 years for me. It’ll be my tenth year in December.
Since Windows 95 and AOL.
Oh, those damn dial-up noises.
Since 1997.
I can trace participation on online communities back to 2001, when I started posting on a forum. Before that, I used AOL chatrooms and had a shitty AOL website that I was really proud of for coding myself in notepad. This must have been 6th or 7th grade, so the year was 1998 or 1999 or so. I joined Xanga in 2003, although I had a barely used livejournal before that. I started a much more frequently used livejournal after than and mostly switched to it, but returned to Xanga a year or so ago.
Short answer: 1998. I’ve been online for 12 years… slightly longer than half my life.
Windows 95
Middle school… so almost 10 years now? I think?
When I was six or seven. My dad’s job revolves around computers.
I don’t think I fully understood the internet until I discovered Neopets forums. I can’t recall what got me so into them, but i was about 14. Then I graduated to myspace and Gaiaonline and then Xanga and Facebook.
I’d say I’ve been here 7 years or so.
@Roadlesstaken - lmao. same.
When I was about 14 . . . So 5 years ago. Actually Xanga was the first thing I really did on the internet. I don’t think I want to look at some of my first posts.
But I started on the computer at a very young age. I was using Excel when I was 6 and cheating on The Oregon Trail when I was 7.
Since I didn’t grow up on it, not too long, really. I first needed it for work e-mails in about 1999 or 2000, but didn’t do too much with it other than that, until Xanga in 2005.
Kathi
Ever since Al Gore created it.
I don’t know. It was some time when I was a kid in the 90′s.
2002 when I went to college. 8 years. WOW.
I’ve been on xanga since then as well…which is INSANE.
1994
I was online about 10 minutes after a good friend of mine uttered the words, “there’s free porn on there. shitload’s of it.”
Dial up AOL 1.0.. Whenever that was.. ha
since I was in the grade 8. 2005 I guess (:
Since 2000 I believe.
Can you say 9600 baud.
@Da__Vinci - I remember when a 14k modem was da shit.
We got it at my house in the fifth grade, so… twelve years now. At age eleven I used to go to AOL chatrooms pretty frequently and pass as an adult. (I promise that is not as creepy as it sounds, it was mostly random and hilarious and I never encountered anything weird.)
Since 2001 and I was 12 then.
Ever since Al Gore invented it
4 years. It started out with me looking for an old anime i had seen years back. I’ve been using it regularly ever since. It started with that and then I started going on message boards, and then myspace and stuff. Than I started playing MMOs, etc.
I was almost 17 when I started, it was June 26th, and my birthday is july 4th
Wow. I guess it’s been like 10 years now, because I got a computer when I was about 9.
Ok mister xanga marketing guru, I’d love your opinion on my latest post “Dear Xanga” dated today (10/15).
since 03
I can’t remember. I’ve been on the internet ever since I was little. Playing games and stuff.
I remember playing the original Warcraft with a friend of mine up the street before WCII came out in ’95 so around then. 26k was the best there was and my Zoom modem cut out all the time. Pentium-100 just came out, 8MB of ram was “tons” and we’d never fill that 1.2 GB HD. All in all I think it cost us about 3k. What’s a terabyte again? Pretty insane in 15 years.
For 3k today you can buy a machine that you’ll have to bolt to the ground before it shoots out your roof to the moon.
when dial up internet was the shit !
I remember when I was about 8 years old our teachers started getting us to use the internet for research. I guess that makes 13 years or so now.
Since I was eight.
12 years/’98.
Since WIN95. Uh…1998?
1995. I barely remember life before that year. Or after that year for that matter, since so much of it was spent staring at the internet.
First used a modem back in the late 80s; I remember sitting in a technology museum flaming some kid in a chat room. That wasn’t the ‘net’, though.
Since I was 12. Age 12 is when I got my first e-mail address. I am almost 21 now. :]]
That is crazy about only visiting the internet about 5 or 6 x’s before starting your Xanga. Makes me feel like Xanga is way popular! I’ve had internet access since the 90′s.
I’ve been on the internet since AOL 4.0 (1998).
So, ~12 years ago. I was about 9 years old.
Couldn’t have been older than 12, quite possible younger. So at least 9 years now.
Mwhaha… I have been on Xanga longer than you!!
But not nearly as popular or famous so, I don’t really have the trump card here…
Uh… it’s been about 15 hours, so far, today. You think I should take a break?
I first made contact with the Internet about 12 years ago, too.
I would say since 2007
since 2rd or 3rd grade? i guess that’s around 2000, maybe 2001.
and i wonder why my brain is rotting.
Fifteen years or so..
Jesus, all you people make me feel old.
I’ve had it since ’95, in high school. And, back then, IRC and BBS’s were the “social media” of the time. Looking back…those things evolved into what we, today, call “4chan”.
If you don’t know already, I wouldn’t recommend googling that, kidlets.
Can’t remember the exact year but Prodigy was the only server and one online shopping spot. Was that the late 80′s or early 90′s ???? Ahh I love old age.
Only 4 or 5 years I think. And the only place I’ve ever been to is Xanga. I don’t do facebook, twitter, myspace or any other site for that matter.
years…..
For about 11 years or so. And I didn’t even know there was internet in 1996! I would of only been like 8 anyway.
@B2yan_C - ha ha I remember that annoying noise. And sometimes when it wouldn’t log in and you would have to endure it again. I liked my windows 95 better than this crappy dell windows xp i own
ever since 6th/7th grade.. so i’m 4th year of college so.. that’s 10/11 years.. oh damn… and i started to get on the internet to play counter-strike..
I was newly introduced to internet [[ AOL to be exact ]] when I was 18 [[ 1999 ]] by a co-worker. She was showing me how to chat up with some guy starting with “A/s/l” which was like “What the hell does that mean!?”
We got email with our first comuter back in 1993 or 94. I began using the internet to find information at work long before I started appreciating its uses at home. After setting up my xanga account in December 2005, I finally began to explore the possibilities.
Since it was interstring! Bill and Al hadn’t even invented the net yet, it was just all like all over the place and stuff.
I had been online a couple times before this, but my family got the internet in the summer of 1996, when I had just finished 6th grade. Many hours of couch potato-ness, ESPN baseball chat, and ICQ followed…..
OH and my sister was all about chatting on IRC! Anybody remember that??
1996 when my Darling was overseas in Riyahd. It kept me company.
Since around 98. Mostly email until around 2000 though.
14 years (I don’t count the times my mom forced me to use it when I was in high school but if I must 16).
Wow, that’s kind of shocking. I first got online in 1996, shortly after I discovered free internet pornography.
In ’93 or ’94 we got our first computer and didn’t do much on the “World Wide Web” except download emails, which took a while thanks to dial-up AOL. Remember the little running AOL guy?
Most of my school research was done with Microsoft Encarta. It was in High School at some point (’99-’03) that I began staying online to IM people and surf the web a bit. But since it was hooked up to the phone line I got in trouble frequently for my “lengthy” (at the time) Internet hours.
Since 1995, when I was 21. I didn’t get my first cell phone until two years later. Weeeird, now I can’t imagine living without either one!
And I’ve been on Xanga since 2004.
Beats me. Maybe,,,6 years. It started with Xanga for me too.
Today? My entire life.
I had to buy my first computer, a (Toshiba “Satellite Pro” laptop with 16mb RAM and a 3.2 gb HD) because of a job. I installed Madden NFL on that thing. I was able to add 16 mb of RAM to bring it up to 32 MB, after which you should have seen my running back burst out of the backfield! :)
Since then I worked for one of the big Wall Street firms as a computer graphic’s specialist. I authored and taught courses at that firm in CorelDraw, later in Illustrator when we made the switch from CorelDraw, and Photoshop. I taught myself how to compose music on the computer and am now using Sonar 8.5. I was a “co-clan leader” of an Unreal Tournament team and later a co-guild leader of a 150+ member World of Warcraft guild. I taught myself how to create Unreal Tournament 2003 levels using their gaming engine which was included with the game. That was fascinating and it was great to upload maps to our servers and play in them with other people. I never wanted/needed a computer but after being forced into buying one I fell in love with them. I know people, especially my age, who struggle with computers. They have other gifts of course. I’m like a fish in water with computers and the internet has been very useful in that.
Since 1995, back in the days when AOL was $2.95/hour. We found a “cheat” that allowed us to stay in chatrooms all night for free, though
I was on the internet in 1997 or so! We were the first house on the block who had dial up, and I was only about ten years old. I would spend all my time looking at TY beanie babies! haha Oh to be a child again.
1999 or 2000. I can’t remember which year it was.
Since Windows 98 was brand new. I waited for it to come out before I got my first PC. But then it was only doing searches and such. In ’03 I was a bulletin board addict and moderator for a Harry Potter site for adults (or at least mature people). I didn’t start blogging until ’06.
I have been on the internet for years. Being in college, the internet is a great source for journal articles needed for research and really any information you could imagine.
My best friend and I are in a contest to win a scholarship, if you could vote it would be greatly appreciated!
<table cellspacing=”0″ cellpadding=”0″ border=”0″><tr><td align=”left”><table cellspacing=”0″ cellpadding=”0″ border=”0″><tr><td colspan=”2″ align=”right”><a href="<tr><td colspan=”2″><a href="Me and My BFF
<a href="Brickfish<tr><td><table cellspacing=”0″ cellpadding=”0″ border=”0″><tr><td><a href="<td><a href="<td><a href="<td align=”right” valign=”top” style=’padding-top:4px’><a href="
Al Gore introduced me to his internet!
I have been on the internet for years. Being in college, the internet is a great source for journal articles needed for research and really any information you could imagine.
http://www.brickfish.com/Pages/PhotosAlbums/PhotoView.aspx?picid=1220739_70125816&pid=4299059&scid=566
I’ve been on the World Wide Web since it became open to the public around 1993. I was on the Internet before that via newsgroups and FTP servers.
I’ve been on the internet since I was six, so, since about mid to late 1993. 1994 is when the internet really hit my household in full force- mostly it was fueled by my two finally divorced parents who heard that one of them had this kind of computer and the other felt the need to go out and try to one-up the other with a newer model (the best at the time were Macs- the first computers ever to have a mouse- and both parents have only ever used macs since!).
But still, I’m 22 now, and so for about 17 years of my life I’ve had access to the internet. Like most in that time, AOL was the end-all for consumer internet access. I was also a regular of The Palace which was the place where ‘lmao’ and ‘rotfl’ and other such variations seriously propagated. I made a post a long time ago about my history on the internet, haha- I’ve seen it all!! Muahahahahahahahaha!
@Jason - I learned something new- I didn’t know ’93 is when it first opened! I just thought it was a lucky fluke that that was my first year ever using it, haha. Now I know why!
Since 90-something. I can remember taking typing and basic computer/internet comp classes in middle school. Not as advanced as it is now, but I grew up when it all started and matured into what it is today.
I guess like 10 or 11 years or so? So, that’s like, half my life. That’s funny. lol.
A friend of mine got a computer with a modem around 1994 when I was in high school, and we would use it to connect to AOL and bulletin board systems. I don’t think we ever accessed the internet proper though, and we mostly used it to play games and chat with girls.
My first exposure to the actual internet was my senior year in high school, around the fall of 1995, right after the release of Windows 95. I didn’t actually use it myself though. I only remember watching a teacher do some Alta Vista searches on it.
My first time using the internet was my freshman year of college in the fall of 1996. I got my own computer in the spring of 1997, and that’s when I started using it frequently.
I have been on for awhile…well over 8 years…its been quite a journey!
September 2005…. WOW…… what a newb!
2004… when I was old enough to register for gamefaqs.com Lol
ever since al gore invented it.
My dad claims that I have been using a computer since I was able to move the mouse. I kind of believe him. I don’t remember a time in my life when we didn’t have internet access. I must have been five with Windows 93 and AOL. I am now almost nineteen and have my own laptop (Windows XP).
Wow, I’m surprised at how “new” most everyone here is to the Internet…I usually operate under the impression that most people are like me & my circle and have been on the ‘net since the heydays of MUDs, BBSs, and IRC, when the WWW was just a novelty and AOL was just getting started….
When I was 9 or 10 so 13ish years ago. I started going on disneys website and chatting with my cousin on icq.
Been online since modems were a phone cradle and we would dial into local BBSs or services like CompuServe. Been on the internet since it opened to the public in 1992.
Since 1995, when the world wide web was still new and just before Windows 95 came out (still used a Macintosh or Windows 3.1 to access the WWW). Back then, people still used gopher and FTP was more widely used too.
18 years.
95 when I was 16.
When I was about 8 or so I started playing games on the computer.
and when WOW came out,
I was addicted.
after that, all of it’s just a blur.
69 B.C.
Way too long. I think I got my first email address in like, 1995.
I sent my first usenet e-mail in 1981. (It was actually pretty cool in those days- you could specify the “route” your e-mail would travel over and look at the header information on received e-mail and see the sites that had received it and passed it on.)
1994 babbby!!
@Kyuketsuki_no_Megami - I first saw the “Mosaic” browser at the University of Washington in early 1993. This was the precursor of the Netscape Browser and the gateway to the web for “ordinary” people.
Two an a half years. I created my Xanga account on March 1, 2008.
Since 2000 at home on dial up, however I have used it before than when I was school for projects,
since I was 12…..
Probably began using the web in 9th grade in the school library (around 1995 or 1996), but there wasn’t much to do on it because it was still growing into popularity. Most people didn’t have a computer at home back then. Now, I don’t recall how we spent our days without it.
i went on periodically but it because a routine for me when i was eleven. i’m fifteen now, so, 4 or 5 years.
Been online since 1994, when I signed up for the old ‘pay by the minute’ dial-up from CompuServe…
I find it ironic, somehow, that I started my xanga site exactly year after yours. Which makes it five years.
4th or 5th grade, ’95 give or take a year. So near fifteen years.
I do not miss the days of dial-up.
Since July of 1999 when I also signed up for my first email address with Yahoo.
Hmmm working the old memory cells here. I think it was 1980 or 1981? but maybe that was the other not quite internet thing ARP something or other? Anyway it wasn’t much good for anything. Still we thought it was amazing.
Back when windows 3.1 still existed.
Dear Dan,
I was responsible for our company getting computers in 1996, so I could use a CAD program instead of hand draw schematics. I got my first home computer, with ATT&T Worldnet dialup internet service, in 1997. I was 44. As soon as I realized 12 year old kids had websites, I figured I’d better get one and learn about the internet, or else I’d soon be “internet illiterate.” http://www.allthingsmike.com went online on my birthday, May 1st, 1999.
By the time I got my Xanga account in May of 2004, I’d already had my personal website for five years, was running groups and forums on Yahoo, and had been writing two blogs on blogspot for two years.
Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool
I was in kindergarten…around ’95/’96, so 15 years? haha
I think since 1997.
…way back when Piczo was a popular and reliable social networking site
I have been on the internet since sometime in the middle to late 90′s (used it for school stuff), but I started playing on the internet regularly in March 2001, when I (then 11 years old) was introduced to a relatively new game called “Neopets”. I was addicted for years. I was lead to Xanga by a friend in early 2004.
And the internet was better for it.
11 years there abouts…
10 years
I’ve been on the internet since I was about 7, if not earlier, with the whole AOL Kids part of the site with all the games and stuff. So around 13 years.
I kinda feel lame…
I was on livejournal for a while, although I wish I had started on Xanga, I would have about 8 years of blog posts… and that would be pretttty awesome.
I started chatting in my dad’s Christian chatroom on IRC when I was eight. I got my own personal Yahoo ID when I was 13 (still have it). That was ten years ago, and I have been enormously active online ever since.
I don’t really remember.
eight, maybe nine years? 2001? 2002?
I’ve used a computer since I was a little kid (I inherited my brother’s old Commodore 64 for playing games on) but I didn’t use the internet until 8th grade, back in 1998. Our teacher made us sign up to hotmail (I still have that account too) so that we could be “key pals” with students from another school. She also had us do little assignments to get used to using search engines and stuff. Now that I think of it, it was really lame lol.
since 1997
Since summer of 1996 @ age 60. I’d taken the community college course the winter before, then got a used computer for Mother’s Day. Had Win 3.1 but still did some things in DOS; bought lots of floppy disks to hold the genealogy I was doing early on. A local company’s owner set up his own server because of bad phone service to international clients and initiated a computer users’ group as well as a mailing list (listserv) for all the members. He was keen on netiquette and other proprieties. I still think boolean search terms even though I don’t write them that way. Mirabilis (?) was the way to ICQ. I’ve had a ball and have friends all over the world.