internet history

[arethinn]

Would it be correct to say that there has been a social aspect (vs. pure information only) to the Net since its inception, or is that stretching things?

Comments

[ungarsfragile.livejournal.com]

Well, the earliest use of packet-switched networks was for electronic mail and for usenet (newsgroups date to 1979). So I think it's fair to say there's always been a social aspect.

[digitalsidhe.livejournal.com]

Email and Usenet are about the oldest applications the net's got. People have pretty much always been using it to connect to each other, not to connect to raw data.

You're not stretching things at all.

[valkyriur.livejournal.com]

What the two above posters said. :)

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Yes, unless someone is defining "social" and "informational" in an odd way. For example, someone could possibly say that LJ is informational rather than social, because many levels of communication involving physical presence are missing. I think that's stretching it, though. I think social interaction can take place with some aspects of it missing.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I don't have time to look up where, but the lab reports from the first packet transmission are on the Web somewhere (of course) and some of the early messages passed were jokes among the students and staff working on the project. Come on, geeks have always been great socialisers (just not necessarily great dressers ...)

[arethinn]

OK, I just wanted to be correct about this assumption before I went and wrote it into a project at work, you see. I've only been on the net since about 1991 at the earliest (and that's if you count Compuserve as "the net", although they did have a Usenet feed as I recall...), so.