The internet has had a huge impact on pretty much every area of our lives over the last few decades and we can see how things have turned up in 2025 and children today are going to school knowing how to surf the web, yet still unable to fasten their shoes. We spend an average of three hours a day online and many of us are constantly connected via several devices. Sadly, the dominance of the internet has meant that some of the simpler things we used to do are now things of the past. Check out these 9 things we don’t do any more thanks to the internet.
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No More Writing thank you notes in 2025
Seeing a thank you note would make your day, but now they’re not as common as they used to be because people just message each other using various messaging applications to message each other. The importance of handwriting has lessened because so much of what we do involves typing instead of actual writing by hand.
2. Avoiding spoilers
Whenever a popular TV show is on, such as Game of Thrones, people will talk about it online while the show is on and after it’s been aired. Before the internet, spoilers pretty much didn’t exist, but go online and it’s very easy to accidentally come across spoilers for your favourite TV shows.
3. Relying on physical maps
Gone are the days of opening up a huge map and trying to work out where you are and how to get to wherever it is you want to go. In a few seconds, the internet can provide you the quickest route from A to B and can even point you int he right direction if you take a wrong turn.
4. Sending handwritten messages
Thanks to the internet, we message each other online using apps, making handwriting messages, sadly, a thing of the past. Messaging apps allow us to communicate with each other instantly, something that handwritten messages simply don’t allow you to do. These days, people want communication to be instant – they don’t want to wait several days for letters to reach someone.
5. Booking holidays with a travel agent
Back in the day, you used to need a travel agent to book a holiday, but thanks to the internet, you can do it all yourself online. We’ve now become our own travel agents in a way.
6. Building up a CD collection
The internet has enabled us to download and stream music; physical CDs used to be the only way to buy music, but now it’s been completely dwarfed by downloads and streaming. People these days are more likely to build up music collections online instead of having a CD collection.
7. Getting the news from newspapers
While newspapers are still popular, most of us tend to get our news online. With the internet, you can get instant, real-time news, whereas with newspapers, you’re reading about stuff that happened the day before.
8. Making photo albums
Thanks to social media, we’re now used to having digital photo albums stored on our social media accounts. Gone are the days of people going on vacation and coming back with an album full of photos to show their friends and family; these days, people post their photos on social media and use the internet to share photos the minute they’ve been taken.
9. Remaining mysterious
Another thing that the internet has killed off is mysteriousness. So many people put so much of themselves and their lives online that anyone can go online and find out a lot about them. Even if you go years without actually seeing someone, you can still know what they eat for breakfast thanks to the internet.
