Life before Internet?

I had dinner with my downstairs neighbor yesterday. We talked about all of the things we do with the Internet.

We are both old enough that we don't do things like pwning others. I didn't even know wth pwning is until someone "pwned" someone else on one of the discussion boards on Facebook. But the Internet has been around for pretty much all of our grown-up lives.

For starters, we use it for work and to check emails. That occupies about 10-12 hours of our days.

Instead of going to a government library to look up tax statistics from 1970 or look up housing prices during the colonial period, I can find these documents online.

If I am debating whether to go see a movie, I can compare reviews online and make an informed decision.
If I want to find out what people think about Schnabel's version of the Beethoven's sonatas, I can do a search online.
If I'm wondering what my old flings are up to, I can google-stalk them.
If I don't know what the heck something is, I can instantly look it up.
If I'm being a hypochondriac, I can look up my latest psychosomatic symptoms and make sure I don't have strep or reassure myself that I am not dying from some rare disease.
I can pay my bills online.
I can renew my books online.
I can buy CDs, clothes, even food online.
I can waste a lot of time playing silly online games like scrabulous with people I barely know.
I use it to check the news.
I use it to check and compare recipes.
I use it to upload photos of recipes I've tried, and then again to share this with friends.
I use it to discuss food.
I use it to write about any random silly topic I find interesting.
I use it to keep in touch with friends who have moved to all remote corners of the world.
I use it to get directions to a destination.

Via the Internet, it is possible to know all about the private lives of people who I know so little about, that I don't even know their real names.
I can have some horrible algorithm "recommend" music or movies or news articles it thinks I might like, based on previous things I might've read or chosen.

I could go on and on.

My neighbor and I both looked at each other and wondered--what the heck did people do before the Internet? Well, ok, I don't mean to suggest that there was no life before the Internet, but 98 percent of my job would be quite different and far less convenient without the Internet.