Yeah, classic sci fi. 'Robot' seems to have captivated the imagination right up until we became part of the cybernetic structure, instead of the other way around.
I'd love to see an episode of the Jettson's remade, where the characters all just sit in separate rooms all night typing and reading (and other stuff) on some faceless network named Rosie. That would be funny.
We shouldn't lie to the kids, though. Back before the Internet, none of us really knew how to do anything. We all just kind of wandered around unable to spell things, build cabinets, or solve statistics equations. We spent hours writing with things called 'pens', huddled away from the dark under our incandescent light bulbs. It was a dreary time. I remember hiding behind the castle wall at my Lord's, just hunkering down and waiting for the barbarians from the next town to stop trying to beat down the door and steal our Life magazines. We'd sit around our one red LED light calculator, hoping the D batteries would not run out, spelling dirty words in the numbers upside down. It was our only entertainment. We were lost. It was cold and dark. A dark time, indeed.
I still remember that day when I was outside, doing an activity we called, "throwing rocks at chickens", when Vint Cerf and Al Gore came riding over the crest of the hill, the manes of their horses flailing straight arcs soaked with sweat, towing behind them that giant spool of cable called the Intertubes.