I remember when the cool kids were never online.

In my personal crusade to be less chronically online, I've tried to reframe what it means to be constantly available, and permanently connected to the Internet.

Let me caveat this post and clarify that I wasn't a cool kid, and that all references to dorks and nerds definitely includes me and my friends, to an extent. I had a nice group of pals, we rode skateboards, played in (bad) local grunge bands, and occasionally had girlfriends. But we also liked video games and stupid early Internet culture. We liked to think we operated on the periphery of alt-cool. Whether we did or not, is anyone's guess.

Nowadays, though, everyone's glued to their devices whether they're super cool and image conscious or a total recluse.

But I'm old enough to remember when the internet was considered to be extremely lame. It was only ever the mega-nerds who were permanently online, and anyone I looked up to, and thought of as remotely cool (vaguely popular, had some hobbies etc), were notably absent. I always assumed because they were out doing something better.

I'm talking about the heady days of MSN Messenger and AOL AIM. You'd sit down at the family computer (probably after making sure Mum wasn't planning a phone call) and log on to see who was around to chat.

Invariably, the lineup was disappointing.

As soon as the dial-up modem was done singing its song, I'd be rolling my eyes at the usual suspects ready and waiting desperately for a ping.

Sounds harsh, but it was rarely the ones you wanted to talk to. The ones with great music recommendations, an invite to something better to do, or a crush. Those folk were out of reach; little greyed out names in your list of virtual buddies, if they were even there at all.

In reality, what they were actually doing likely wasn't that much cooler. Playing an (offline) games console, being dragged to a boring family thing, watching TV. But in my mind? They were out there, mastering the kickflip, being kids, up to no good like all teenagers should be.

So I'm sorry nerds, but you gave us the Internet, maybe it's time you had it back.

Seriously though, we're all too cool to be doomscrolling and frantically checking our messages. Let's get out there, and go live our lives.

And on that note, GTG.

~ TJ is offline.