Jul 3, 2026, 1:24 PM@mhoye I had a college roommate who simply put his computer in a box every summer and unboxed it again in the fall. He couldn't fathom why he'd use it when he didn't need it for school work, and this was just before smart phones.
@linc I'm going to guess that the difference between you and him was a community, right? You had a community on the far side of the computer and he didn't. For you it was a social conduit; for him, it was just a tool.
@mhoye @linc Not OP, could have been. But people tinkered and built stuff with computers before they were networked or online communities existed.
For some people, a computer is/was a jumped up word processor with email. If you aren’t writing papers or managing correspondence, you go off and hang out with friends or practice your hobby(ies) - sport, model UN, woodworking, model railroads, music. Whatevs. If you’re spending an evening building packages, that’s an evening not doing the thing you’re trying to achieve. The computer is obstructing you rather than enabling.
There was a time when computers involved IRL clubs and gatherings. Still can with Maker Spaces, but computer clubs and user groups don’t really exist as such any more - certainly not the way they did in the 1970s or 80s.