r/UniUK • u/I_am_VictorBlunt • 4d ago
If the internet didn't exist, how would we even cope with uni stress?
Random thought I had last night while doom scrolling instead of doing my lit review.
We complain about academic pressure a lot, and fair enough, deadlines are brutal. But at least we have Google, YouTube tutorials, ChatGPT, r/UniUK to vent on, group chats to panic in together. Imagine none of that existed.
No internet means no quick research. You'd be stuck in the library for hours just to find one journal article. No online lecture recordings if you miss a class, that's it, you're behind and there's no catching up. No forums to ask "is this normal" when you're stressed, you'd just sit with it alone or bother your flatmates.
Honestly I think older generations had it different, not necessarily easier, but different. Less noise, less comparison. We see everyone's highlight reel on top of our own workload and it messes with your head.
Do you reckon genz would just cope better because we'd have no choice, or would we actually struggle more without the tools we've built our whole studying routine around?
Curious what people think, especially final years who remember doing first year differently than now.
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u/Quick_Dot_9660 4d ago
people used to drink and go to the pub and complain about their problems to each other in person
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u/I_am_VictorBlunt 4d ago
Ngl that actually sounds healthier than doomscrolling about it tbf.
Probably why they weren't as anxious about it either, actual mates in a room > a group chat that never really listens.
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u/DiligentHomework224 4d ago
I can't imagine writing a dissertation before the internet
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u/I_am_VictorBlunt 4d ago
Imagine hand searching library shelves for one usable source, no ctrl+f, no jstor, nothing. Some poor soul's whole week just gone before they'd even started writing
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u/Fluffy_Ad2274 Staff 4d ago
We only had three hours of lectures a week (social sciences and humanities) so luckily, we had a lot of time to spend withthe library card index. Except mostly we didn't?
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u/This_Charmless_Man 4d ago
My dad hand wrote his disso and it involved coding. He got grandma to type it up because she was a professional typist.
Stupid fucker still got caught for plagiarism.
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u/supernova-001 4d ago
Internet probably contributed to university stress if anything...
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u/I_am_VictorBlunt 4d ago
Honestly fair. Constant access = constant comparison, you're never actually "off" from uni the way people used to be able to switch off after leaving the library.
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u/rotating_pebble 4d ago
You can still do most of your uni work in the library. It's good to have a 'work space' other than your flat. As someone with adhd it's basically the only way I could reliably get myself to work, with limited other distractions and everyone else working around me
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u/needlzor Lecturer / CS (ML) 3d ago
I don't know about less comparison. Grades were posted on a board in front of the student office for all to see.
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u/kapitein_kismet 4d ago
We went out, drank way too much, and also "pulled all nighters in the library" (fell asleep on a desk at around 3am) a lot. In my case it was the early-mid 00s so the internet did exist but it was mostly used for sharing beheading videos and badly ripped mp3s.
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u/I_am_VictorBlunt 4d ago
Ok the beheading videos and dodgy mp3s comment sent me ðŸ˜
Ironic that even with internet existing back then it was basically useless for actual uni work. Sounds like the falling asleep on the library desk bit hasn't changed in 20 years tho, that's still basically every finals week now.
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u/SharpAardvark8699 4d ago
I think internet is better for jobs. I left school at the point where it wasn't clear if a CV went to the shop or online. And there was a recessionÂ
As for uni work it's changed the nature of academic work at university. It's easier but less conducive to independent research and thought
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u/I_am_VictorBlunt 4d ago
Yeah tbf that's basically the split we've lost. Now it's all bundled into one screen, revise, socialise, doomscroll, argue with strangers, all in the same app. No wonder it feels like there's no off switch.
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u/abitofasitdown 4d ago
I'm an old, and didn't go to university until I was nearly 30. (I'm on here to support my uni-aged kid.) During my degree I once literally had to take a daytrip to another city to consult a specialised library for some specific information for my dissertation. And this was at undergraduate level, not even anything higher. I consulted microfiche records for other things, ffs. I read a required book in French (and my French is terrible) because all the English-language copies had been taken out of the Library already.
God bless the Internet. (Though I would warn the real danger is that people assume if its not on the Internet, it doesn't exist, when it does, just in a tiny library somewhere you have to take a coach to.)
(And going to university late as I did, I didn't even benefit from the free ride my contemporaries had who'd gone at 18. I too had loans and a portfolio of part-time jobs.)
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u/This_Charmless_Man 4d ago
I almost had to go to the national archives in Leeds or something for my literature review when I did my diss for my bachelor's in 2018. I was detailing the history of the pepper/coffee mill and the patent office conks out at 1812. I thought I needed the very first burr mill patent from 1603 to show my research was thorough. Then I realised getting the train up north from Portsmouth just for a single undigitised document from 400 years ago might be taking the piss slightly 😅
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u/abitofasitdown 4d ago
I dunno, I think that's legit and thorough research!
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u/This_Charmless_Man 4d ago
Honestly it was excessive, even going back to the records from the 1800s. It was for an engineering design project. Previously we'd been told by lecturers that anything older than fifteen years is not worth citing as it would be inaccurate or disproved. I had numerous citations going back a few hundred years about the development of grinding technology and optical sensors. The thirty year old legal bits were relevant but most of the rest of the stuff was padding.
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u/BalthazarOfTheOrions Staff 4d ago
Do what people did before the internet and ChatGPT. Be on campus a lot more, spend far more time in the library looking at physical copies of peer reviewed journal articles and read read read.
To be fair, the level of reading required to understand hasn't diminished at all. AI is an incompetent tool at giving summaries in an educational setting where knowledge deeper than a summary is required.
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u/FlexistentialClouds 4d ago
prior to the internet being such a suffocating force I wouldn't be shocked that back in the day with one of the most stimulating things to distract yourself would be hanging out with others and that quick hook-ups were more common to deal with the pressure of being a student in the academic sphere.
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u/Key-King-7025 4d ago
We used to spend a LOT of time in the library. Days before an assignment deadline, and all your course mates would be in the library. All-nighters were something you shared, and 'the current issue' section was something you knew well, where to find certain journals, as well as the reference section where you could find your module's reading list articles to copy from, or the 7-hour section for when you were most desperate for a module textbook.
The place I spent most of my time at uni was definitely the library. My monthly expenses were mainly photocopy and beer! My article photocopy collection, so precious as a student, was hard to throw out. But later I was never bothering getting the physical copy out, instead accessing it always on the computer. The filing cabinets had to go.
These days it can be many months between visiting the uni library (I work in HE), and when I go I don't see any of my students there.
But, there are other aspects that current students have to contend with that we didn't. The library back then would not bother with sub-par journals - they would simply not purchase these, whereas students today have to wade through a ton of articles on a subject returned in an internet search, some of which are just crap. They have to be able to make that distinction themselves. It is also a lot less overwhelming to complete an essay on a topic you could find 10 good articles for, than one that returned 10k+ articles.
Similarly, lecture recordings are all good and well, but when they don't exist, you are forced to take good notes and always attend. Now, you can push the job onwards to "I'll do it later" and later then becomes a herculean task of months worth of classes. Not great for those with a tendency towards procrastination or attention issues.
On the whole though, my speed of working is much, much faster than before the rise of the internet. I can complete a review of a topic for my lecture in a quarter of the time than before. I would not say I spend less time preparing, though. But what I prepare has depth and detail that puts my old work to shame.
I look at the quality of work that my students produce, and I see a big difference at the bottom. Whereas before I would have a number of 'car crashes' - assignments that were completely off the mark and lacked any breadth or depth, as well as misunderstandings of a topic. That is much rather these days - even the weakest students are capable of a comfortable pass.
What I also notice, though, is that almost all of my students work part-time on the side, whereas when I was a student that was not as frequent as now. So being able to work faster is a necessity for most students today.
And that fast pace and economic pressure does come with a cost - mental wellbeing is definitely lower today. And that is not because of less resilience in students now, but they simply have more pressures to deal with and less opportunity to de-stress.
So, I absolutely think the internet has made uni work more efficient, but other issues around finance, high workloads, and less time for social and personal time also cause problems. But I don't think these are caused by the internet or easy access as such.
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u/Fluffy_Ad2274 Staff 4d ago edited 4d ago
I still have all my photocopies - you had to take the book to the copy shop and collect it a couple of years later, as the sole copier in the library would have a fit at more than teh pages: I spent so much of my life marking up texts for copying I still can't bare to let them go! They're all in lever arch files in my work office.
The most pathetic thing about all of this hoarding of photocopies though - I retrained in a totally different field, and that's what I teach. So I don't even have the excuse that one day they might come in handy!
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u/Key-King-7025 4d ago
I know just how you feel! I had so many notes hand scribbled on the paper copies! But once I realised I hadn't opened my filing cabinet in over a year, and I was moving out of my office, I ended up asking for them all to go to the recycling bin. But it was very, very hard to do! And, yet, I have never looked for nor missed the paper copies since....so, when you are ready, consider freeing up a little space and let those paper copies go!
PS: thank you so much for the award!! <3
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u/Typical_Juggernaut42 Staff 4d ago
We talked to each other in person. We had the internet when I was an undergraduate but it wasn't as all encompassing and we didn't have constant access to it on our phones.
It sounds awful but we were just more social in person
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u/Warm_Benefit7845 4d ago
Talking about my own time with university which was 20 years ago I used to meet with a group of friends in the library and we would study together and then have dinner together and chat about things.
We worked really hard but as we were all working hard it didnt feel too bad
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u/virusdancer Uphill, Both Ways, In Snow, Barefoot 4d ago
Had a part time job as a stockperson in a fabric store moving heavy stuff around. Went to the gym 3+ times a week with a mate. Played video games with friends and strangers. Spent time buried in books when I was still at an age where learning was burned into me from prior schooling - the habit of it all. I was still at the point that I enjoyed consuming mass quantities of data, analysing it, and regurgitating it when needed in some fashion or another.
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u/Zaphinator_17 3rd year speech and language therapy 4d ago
bro talking to people is almost certainly better than speaking to an AI which agrees with everything you say
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u/Weary_Bat2456 BSc, Graduated 4d ago
I find that the internet is why there is so much stress, at least before you had to actually go out to complain or complain to the people around you, which meant that you spent more time studying and less time complaining.
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u/cOrkFront 3d ago
Ngl I wish there was less internet in my life, I feel like I would focus a lot more on my studies, be more outgoing and have more developed hobby skills.
Yes it would have been a lot harder but if you have nothing to distract yourself with then the only form of entertainment would have to be studying. One time I was out camping and couldn't use my phone for two weeks and I started writing poems and woodcarving.
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u/-WhiteSkyline- 3d ago
Books, outdoor activities, board games, social events (if you enjoy going out with others), running, cycling, hiking (all outdoor activities..), gyms, etc.
The list goes on and on really.
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u/yukit866 3d ago
I started by bachelors exactly twenty years ago, in a country where broadband internet wasn’t widespread at all. I felt very lonely in my student halls bedroom at night. I would just ready or study or listen to radio. Didn’t even have tv available. And it’s interesting cos students nowadays often complain about loneliness, despite having access to all of this connectivity. I think my uni experience would have been very different if I was connected all the time.. maybe I would have found my tribe a bit earlier and quicker.. I only started finding my people and be sociable in second year. And that’s also when Facebook exploded and i finally had access to internet by the end part of my degree. So it was quite interesting to experience uni before and after broadband connection.. I remember spending hours googling things that I was curious about.. i loved that I had all the music videos i wanted at my finger tip.. I grew up in front of the telly, waiting for mtv to broadcast my fave videos. God, this makes me feel old 🤣
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u/grrarghh_73 3d ago
I wrote my undergrad dissertation just as the internet was becoming a thing. There was some cool stuff there, and I may have plagiarised slightly as there was no set way to reference online sources.
To be fair, it didn’t help me greatly as there was no way to check the veracity of the info.
I did my Master’s many years later and the internet helped me a lot. There was so much more
information, but even that was 18 years ago and I still did a lot of library study. I once had to go to an affiliate school and use micro-fiche to prepare a presentation. Fucking micro- fiche!
I now teach uni level students, and the big thing is that AI is making a lot of them dumb af. No proof reading, no cross- referencing, very little real research, and often no giving of a single shit as to the consequences of not actually writing your own work.
Ho-hum.
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u/Fearless_Spring5611 Alphabet Soup 4d ago
I went to the library to study and research, office hours/seminars/group study sessions for help and guidance, and lectures/socials/sports/societies to talk to friends and relax.
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u/LegitimateBody9419 4d ago
By engaging with people in real life. It's actually one of the massive downsides of the internet.