This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I don't think this was usual. My father got a computer in 1997 or so and it was a big deal as a professional to have a PC.
I could see having a PC or Mac being a big deal in 1987 but to get one in the family only in 1997 would have been either intentional ludditism (typically by old people), a rare Amiga holdout or a major outlier here (likely due to never recovering from getting laid off during the early 90s recession). The question in 1997 was whether you already had dialup internet or were only planning on getting it soonish. If someone had suggested then that "computers were just for 50 year old suits in IBM and insurance companies", they would have been laughed at by the normies.
1997 is around when we got our first computer. We were kinda poor. Plenty of other families I knew from school didn't have one either. They didn't truly become a normal household appliance until the early 00s.
More options
Context Copy link
Just to add my own piece to this, my family never got a home computer till 2001 for my birthday. I remember cause 9/11 happened two weeks later. I think you're the one thats atypical. Although I did grow up in a poor rural area. Maybe you grew up in a big city and thats why you think everyone had a computer in the 90s?
More options
Context Copy link
to be fair, 4bpp wrote
Is there any other explanation needed? DW.com reported in 2025 how Germany has difficulties get past the fax machine. And in 1990s Germany wasn't even that much an outlier. Here is OECD paper "Access to and Use of Information Technologies at Home" from 1997. According to Table 5.1, percentage of households equipped with personal computer was <30% in all countries presented in the table, except for Denmark (32%). France, Spain and Japan were barely above 10% in 1995. In the same year, Swedish average computer ownership was 27.6%, and only the very upper education cohort (2+ years of university or more) broke above 50%. For a Swede with any other educational background, it was more common not to have a computer at home than have one.
Sounds like that kids in your upper elementary school class had quite young and educated parental background? (Or perhaps you didn't notice the kids without computers? My parents were below-median income, when I grew old enough to realize that, I became very hesitant to invite classmates over to visit because I had much less cool stuff to show, there wasn't cool things to do, and the apartment was small.)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link