The Internet Child
Yesterday, I was wondering how the internet has changed our lives during the last two decades—especially my life.
Two out of three full-time jobs on my resume would’ve been impossible without the internet.
Three out of five internships I did would’ve been unimaginable if I had chosen to be perpetually offline.
My political and economic opinions wouldn’t have been the same without the information consumed on the internet.
This made me think about my journey on the internet till date.
Pre-2010 era
Like many people of my generation, I used the internet to complete school projects. Wikipedia was the go-to site for project-related research. This was the first and most important use case.
Next, I created a mail ID and checked out social media sites like Orkut. During this era, whenever you created an email ID, you were supposed to have your high-school crush’s name in your password. Any dumb idiot could have hacked my email ID during those days.
Like other teenagers of my era, I did check out pornography occasionally. Anyone who denies using the internet to explore porn is a big liar. TBH, I didn’t discover it on my own.
A friend of mine told me that he would show me something mind-blowing. I was shocked when he opened a page showing women with bare boobs! Few weeks later, I discovered that a seemingly nice guy with strict parents was watching hardcore material. It was crazy and scandalous.
Internet Cafes
From the economic POV, Internet cafes were a real career opportunity for people in small and big towns in India. An hour of the Internet used to cost 20-40 rupees.
People had to carry ID cards to access the internet! Many of these cafes were overcrowded. I remember waiting for my turn in long queues at an internet cafe near my home.
When the whole smartphone revolution swept the country, and cheap internet became the norm, many shops had to shut down permanently. Within a decade, many businesses would’ve become defunct.
But I still see some Internet cafes assisting village people and poor kids to navigate the internet. People who want to check their PF accounts or apply for government jobs still need the assistance of internet-savvy people. But I don’t see a bright future for the Internet cafe business.
2010-2015 era
Today, the internet freely flows like water (sometimes more efficiently than water supply). During my college days, internet packs cost 720 bucks per GB. Or something like that. I didn’t even have an internet dongle because it was expensive.
NITK, my alma mater, had a perpetually full internet room. Students generally used it to open Facebook accounts, download stuff and chat with strangers on Omegle. It was a humungous waste of time!
Even after I got a Dell laptop in my second year, I depended heavily on the hostel's internet. It was generally overloaded and spotty. Many student representatives who got elected used to promise that the internet service would be improved substantially. That promise was not fulfilled during my days at college!
Smartphones, Online Dating and Social Networks
After graduating from college, I didn’t have a good smartphone. I had to wait a few months before I could save and buy a decent one. Moto-G phones were quite popular (and expensive too).
When I eventually got one, I downloaded a dating app for the first time and matched with a Bengali girl in Chennai (where I got my first job). The internet made my first date possible because I was way too awkward to ask out a girl in real life.
I didn’t understand online dating for quite some time. For example, your picture was supposed to be a very important part of the profile. I didn’t realise it until an aunty-ish elder friend told me I must change it.
Despite poor pics, I did end up meeting several people. But, the behaviour of girls generally confused me. For example, the first girl I dated eventually told me she had a boyfriend in another city. It sounded crazy to me. Why would anyone play around like that?
Between 2010 and 2014, Facebook was still cool, and Instagram had not taken off. Then I hopped on to the Twitter bandwagon. The Internet helped me make new friends and dragged me to offline meet-ups. They were called “Tweet-ups”. I still remember the one I attended in Jayanagar 4th block. Those were wild times.
Post 2015-Internet Boom
Jio launched in 2015 and brought down internet prices significantly. I might sound like a grandfather, but we have many distractions on the internet these days because of low internet prices.
Netflix, Substack, Zoom, Instagram and Amazon have engulfed our lives. I can’t imagine my day without services like Zomato, Uber and WhatsApp. These days, I spend more time on the internet than in real life. This is a bit of a tragedy.
It was fashionable to be online in 2014. But in 2023, it is fashionable to be offline and lead a secluded internet-free life. Only the rich can afford to do that. To be honest, that’s my ultimate goal.
I aspire to become an off-the-grid writer churning novels from a remote farmhouse someday (of course, free time would be spent with my artistic singer-songwriter partner and over-achieving kids who’d visit me during vacations).