I started writing an essay about this topic. I am one of those nostalgics by the old internet. I thought it was the aesthetic (geocities, etc), but after giving it a lot of thought, that wasn't. It was that your life (all of us) was "offline by default".
We lived offline and then we connect to the internet for a few minutes, hours, whatever. But you lived your life offline. We attended concerts, took photos, recorded videos, and then we took our time to share them online (maybe that same night, maybe the next days). You went online to discuss something that happened in real life.
Now it's the reverse. We live "online by default". Everything happens online, all we do is first online or at least at the same time. We attend a concert? We publish pictures and videos almost instantly (some people even do a live stream from the concert!). Something happens in politics? People discuss it as it happens on Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Going to the computer to connect to surf the web may sound silly, but that was the difference. Internet was inside a device you had to use. Now internet is happening around you all the time (and if you miss it for a few days, ouch!)
We lived offline and then we connect to the internet for a few minutes, hours, whatever. But you lived your life offline. We attended concerts, took photos, recorded videos, and then we took our time to share them online (maybe that same night, maybe the next days). You went online to discuss something that happened in real life.
Now it's the reverse. We live "online by default". Everything happens online, all we do is first online or at least at the same time. We attend a concert? We publish pictures and videos almost instantly (some people even do a live stream from the concert!). Something happens in politics? People discuss it as it happens on Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Going to the computer to connect to surf the web may sound silly, but that was the difference. Internet was inside a device you had to use. Now internet is happening around you all the time (and if you miss it for a few days, ouch!)