@binarytango I was on the internet during the dial-up era, but I was also about 6-8 years old and I mostly frequented academic and educational sites. (Before you ask: yes, I was a precocious kid who learned to read on his own, very early. Now I'm just a precocious adult with a mathematics doctorate and crippling impostor syndrome. 🙃 )
I also wasn't allowed to use chatrooms until I was an adult. I used IRC when I was young once in the mid-2000's, then returned to it around 2017 before joining Discord in late 2018 when I realized everyone was there, and joining Matrix as well some time after that.