It seems that the Internet has always existed. See for yourself.
1. Almost 400 years before the Facebook social network was created, German students were already using the "Book for Friends".
Every time students got acquainted with someone, they asked permission from a new friend to bring in his or her name and, perhaps, some drawings or quotations in the book.
2. In the 18th century, people already looked at the world through filters, as in Instagram. Only the filters were real, real.
Special devices, known as Claude's mirrors (named after the French painter Claude Lorrain) were small closable cases that could be stored in a pocket or briefcase. Inside was a small mirror of a rectangular or ellipsoidal shape, the surface of which was tinted to muffle the shades and to give the picture an attractive twilight.
3. These English aristocrats sent each other messages of a sexual nature 250 years before Snapchat.
Lady Grosvenor and her lover exchanged letters written in invisible ink, with an important instruction: "After reading the burn." But something went wrong, the letters were intercepted and published, which caused a huge scandal.
4. Selfie Rembrandt.
In the 17th century, the Dutch artist created more than a hundred self-portraits.
5. Among other things, people in the 19th century were obsessed with what is called a hypha in modern times.
6. Images with cats and funny comments have become very popular.
7. It turns out that emoticons were used already in 1881.
8. Singles were looking for themselves a couple hundred years before the appearance of Tinder.
In search of the second half, office workers of the 19th century used the telegraph network - the Victorian Internet.
9. As many as 2000 years ago, the ancient Greeks used a tablet similar to the modern iPad.
Wax tablets were a mandatory mobile device in ancient times, used for everything from doing business to reading news.
10. Roman emperor Severus invented the very first version of Google Maps and placed it on the wall of the temple.
An incredibly detailed map showed the location of apartments, shopping malls, brothels and even interior layout of buildings.
11. This guy wrote unpleasant tweets long before the appearance of Twitter.
The Roman poet Marshal liked to write obscene insults. Here, for example, he wrote about someone with an unpleasant smell from the mouth: "Your puppy licks your mouth and lips. I'm not surprised, because dogs like to eat shit. "
12. In the ancient city of Pompeii there was a version of Grindr.
People with non-traditional orientation scratched the walls of NSFW (Not Safe for Work-unsafe for work (used to indicate sexual content)), offering intimate services.
13. Sir Hans Sloane collected and sorted all the rubbish 300 years before the advent of Pinterest.
14. Tourists left their negative feedback long before the Trip Advisor.
sights and even churches ("A terrible spire", - it was said in one of the reviews).
15. An engineer named Ramelli invented a book wheel, a kind of giant Kindle (a device for reading electronic books).
16. Norwegians recorded important events on sticks 800 years before Twitter.
Stick-runes were used for any type of message, including confessions in personal failures.
17. 3D-printer was invented in 1859.
A sophisticated technique requiring 24 simultaneous images was called "photo sculpture".
18. Joanne Zedler used the crowd-hosting scheme to publish the encyclopedia. Currently, you can go to the site Kickstarter.
19. Thomas Jefferson used a pedometer to calculate the kilometers he had traveled. Prototype of modern watches by Fitbit.
20. 700 years before Google came up with the idea, the philosopher Ramon Ljul invented a device to answer any questions.
Rotating 3 paper wheels, you are guaranteed to receive answers to the questions of interest.
21. And about 1000 years before the Japanese writer Sei Shonagon published articles in which facts and advice were listed under ordinal numbers.
Her most famous book contains 164 lists, for example: things that are unpleasant to hear, things that make the heart beat more often.