The other day I suddenly remembered the door of my college room. Since I was at university pre-Internet, pre-mobile phones there was a piece of paper and a pencil on the door so that people who came round to find me could leave a message... by writing on the door.
At my school (in the mid-'90s) it was the same thing, but with whiteboards. You'd affix a cheap little whiteboard and non-permanent marker to your door, and people who came by would leave you messages. Then at day's end you'd come back, read the messages, and wipe the board clean for tomorrow.
It strikes me now how much those little whiteboards prefigured social media. Some people used them to leave status updates, like we do today on Facebook -- you'd write how you were doing today or where you were going to be later at the top of your board. And others (like me) used them like Twitter, as a place to leave little jokes for others to come by and read.
Facebook was great when it was about randomly writing on people's walls, and having a way to contact that fellow college student you just meant. Now it's all about sharing click-bait, and very little social interaction.
Just because new communication mechanisms come out doesn't mean old ones are abandoned and things are all worse.
Honestly, these regular screeds against the Internet remind me of the many individuals in history who have decried the evils of writing, newspapers, telephones, radio, and television.
These things still existed even after the Internet.
I graduated a couple of years before the first iPhone came out and when having a Blackberry or other connected device was not the norm. I still used the internet pretty heavily, but it was just not mobile. Odds were that the person would see the message on the door first before they got an email you sent.
