Life would be the same because there were no computers that could access the internet 100 years ago.

This has been asked before but basically. The internet is a by-product of computers and computers are possible because of plastics, plastics are possible due to the processing of oil. bla, bla, bla...

If the internet was invented 100 years earlier then it would have been pointless because computers (as we know them) would not have been invented either.

If - by some miracle it did get invented then, people would not be ready and would call it a ridiculous idea and said person would have been duly shunned.

Inventions happen due to logical progressions and changes in circumstances, needs and market behaviour. You can't invent the wheel before you know the shape and you can't sell and idea if people don't need it. 'Wheels. What for? When we can hover!'

Like zman said it would be the same because computers weren't around. It's like the first computer program. It was created hundreds of years before the computer was invented and it was all based on mathematical theory, but I'm willing to bet money that this is the first time that you've heard that.

It would be like when the Greeks invented the steam engine they didn't now what it could do so they just forgot about it.

Well....let's think outside the box, shall we?

If the internet was invented 100 years ago....it probably means that prohibition would not have happened because it would have been harder to enforce.

People of color probably would not have been allowed to use computers for a while...but because of the internet I think their Civil Rights would have happened earlier.

Women wouldn't have been allowed to use the internet either because society would have believed the delicate-sex wouldn't have had the brain power to do so. Because of the inter-connectedness of the net it would probably take 6 months to change their perception on that issue.

Flappers would have reached farther and wider--and it would have been the porn back then so probably the sexual revolution would have happened sooner except without the pill which would have meant either a BIG baby-boom 100 years ago, OR abortion laws would have been challenged and changed sooner.

Knowledge would have spread faster and further so perhaps some inventions would have happened quicker. I think the powerful would have tried to stop the internet, because they are generally afraid of letting 'we the people' know too much about what really goes on. But once the internet it out there, it cannot be reined in.

TV would have happened years before it did. So couch-potatoes would have sprung up years before they did. America would have then become obese long before it did.

And everyone would know what really happened at Roswell. We'd have it on Utube.

I remember when people could barely afford one TV in the house and that one would've probably been a B&W model which weighed in about 100 Lbs for the vacuum tubes with channels 2-83. It was also about 15 years ago that ISP's came into existence...20 years before that for answering machines. Before that AT&T didn't allow anything but their phones to be hooked up to their lines.

Perhaps the most important thing about the invention of the Internet was there was no cold war in place for Darpa to develop TCP/IP for government/university systems to survive a nuclear war. Easy answer for this one...with no cold war or other widespread paranoia in place...the question is immaterial.

If we'd take that computers also were invented 100 years ago as the internet and other scientific advances were high enough to even manage such a thing it would be a lot different. I'd say the internet is the biggest invention of humankind. If we wouldn't have the internet there wouldn't be computers this advanced, no "smart phones", or other things that are based on the internet. These days the internet is basically everything. Considering how far we've gotten in 20 years, is enormous. Now, add another 80 years to it. You won't be able to dream what would be if we were even 20 years ahead. It wouldn't be the thing you choose to use or not, it would be the center of humans and Earth. If it'd collapse, the world would be in chaos. Even now, no company would abandon the web and start using paper instead - it would be ridiculous. By then it wouldn't be something that everyone could use to its full potential, up to 100%. You would only use a part of it. It would be too powerful for everyone to use. Only top facilities would consume all of it. In my point of view, it wouldn't be so great. The more advanced technology you've got, the less humans you need. If robots were to do all the work for us you wouldn't have to pay for the worker's health insurance or pay him. It would come out as robots being smarter than us and basically - not to be ridiculous - control. I apologize for the length of this post, which you probably even didn't read fully through. Happy surfing!