It was when Going Online was still a ritual, just like starting up the computer was - it took a while, sometimes you had to go through a menu or start up Windows or whatever separately still, you got this jingle when starting up, sometimes a login screen, all that stuff. Then going online, dialing up, telling the family (if any) that you're using the internet for a while, firing up the browser, etc. Using the internet was (for most people anyway) a very focused task too, given the per minute charge - get online, do what you want, get offline again.

I noticed that myself very quickly after getting DSL; while we had a bandwidth limit (1500 MB / month iirc), I still spent a lot of time online; freed from pay per minute, you get a lot more time to just browse and explore. Still do the latter. Usually it's browsing Reddit, but sometimes I fall into a rabbit hole.