My first strong memory of working with the internet was the ICQ messenger I used as a teen. Previously, I had been on various message boards which explored my interests, but it was ICQ which I have the most fond memories of.
ICQ was a personal messenger where you could add friends to personally chat with. The old days of dial-up internet meant that chatting with someone may require some scheduling. The reason why the memory of ICQ is so vivid for me was the breadth of who you could connect with. I would make friends from Russia, Georgia, Australia to name a few. To talk to and learn about the lives of other teenagers living across the world really interested me. My family did not have money to travel overseas so this experience really enlightened me to how people in the rest of the world operated.
Today it seems silly that such a rudimentary connection to other people in this world was so awe-inspiring but at the time it was such an amazing experience.
James
Thanks for reminding me about ICQ. I remember feeling a tension between deciding whether to switch from ICQ to MSN when both were increasingly popular. The thing I distinctly remember about ICQ is having to input people’s ICQ numbers to search (using 8 digit numbers to distinguish accounts), and I think I still remember mine!
Andrew