for the first time, it was in 1998 (the internet arrived in Brazil in 1995). To get an internet connection we had to have a service provider to dial up thought the telephone (landline) using a modem (which is very different of what we see today, despite the fact the concept is still similar).
After a few year the ADSL connection started becoming popular in Brazil, so it was affordable to have this kind of connection and pay not a cheap monthly fee, but 24 hours of connection for the same payment - and with that, the old modem was retired which had to pay for a minute connected.
Year by year, we see the internet speed is increasingly faster in a way that we are able to watch a movie online now, or even download a movie in Blu-ray quality in minutes; make phone calls for free (not speak and listen, but actually see other people while speaking); make use of many public services such as the light invoice, income tax return, check the public expenses (know as transparency portal); and also talk to the politicians.
So if we stop to think how contrasting and interesting is to compare the two periods, our life before the internet and today with dedicated connection.
Lets see some interesting topics:
- Correct writing: many acronyms raised in order to make shorter the time to type, such as u, ur, 2moro, ily, omg, ttyl, wtf, and many others. In Portuguese we see others similar but mostly the way its pronounced, the phoneme such as vc (means voce), mto (muito), etc.
- Listen the complete album: buy a CD of your favorite band to listen at home or in the car it out of question. You buy or listen the sound track that you most like, online or downloading it. By the way, internet radios are about to change again the music market.
- Truth famous people: mostly because of the social networks and blogs we see people becoming famous due to specific activities - perhaps the most common is with music, DJs, etc.
- Sex mystery: Before this change, people would discover the sex only at that time together with the partner, and as a consequence it created a much bigger expectation. Today with sex trivialized, anyone can learn everything about it before “practicing".
- Encyclopedias: perhaps kids have another concept of what encyclopedia meant twenty years ago, many books with lots of books and pretty expensive. For them, the information might be on Google, Wikipedia, etc, but definitely not on a book.
- Knowledge: everyone today can have a minimum knowledge about any subject, just need some spare time to search a bit.
- Know places at home: how many times you were first on the web to search about a place you have to go, to get more info, or to see how to get there using maps. And more, look for more info about a city you are interested in visiting, the main sightseeings, hotels to stay, etc.
Absolutely sure there are many other things the Internet changed the way we do things, and of course, we haven't even quoted what smartphones and tablets have changed.
But for the next time you use any service of the internet, you will think how that thing was in the past (if you are older than 30 years old, of course)!!