This year is my 21st year online. I joined the Internet community in December 1997 and immediately started exploring email-based 'newsgroups' and searching the small but growing search engines for random stuff!
Within a couple of years my activity had moved to messaging software such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and ICQ!!
I had also started to participate, and indeed admin, several online communities on ONElist, eGroups (later part of Yahoo! Groups) and the early web-based forums.
These days my main apps of choice (installed on my mobile devices and not just a desktop/laptop of course) still provide a feature packaged platform on which to discuss a mutual interest and provide support virtually.
The Messenger apps and email groups/lists were simply the earliest form of Social Media. The coding, technology and infrastructure may change and develop, but the underlying demand for connectivity remains the same.
For those of us who have built a career on the human need to interact and share thoughts and experiences with others - we can't wait to see where the current trend for touch screens, voice assistants and smart homes takes us!