Do you remember a/the time before the Internet?

[Alexey86]

Do you remember a time before the Internet? = Do you remember ever living without the Internet?

Do you remember the time before the Internet? = Can you actually recall what your life was like before the Internet came into our lives?

Do I grasp the difference correctly?

 

[Rover_KE]

... and internet no longer needs to be capitalised.

 

[Alexey86]

You are trying to read too much into this. I see no significant difference between the two.

But if time = occasion, there would be a difference:

Do you remember a time when we went shopping (= any one of the several/many occasions of going shopping together)?
Do you remember the time when we went shopping (= we went shopping once)?

What do you think?

 

[Tarheel]

Do you remember a time when we went shopping?

Do you remember if we ever went shopping?

Do you remember the time when we went shopping?

Do you remember that time we went shopping?

 

[Alexey86]

But if time = occasion, there would be a difference:

Do you remember a time when we went shopping (= any one of the several/many occasions of going shopping together)?
Do you remember the time when we went shopping (= we went shopping once)?

If time = period, there would be a difference too:

Do you remember a time when we went shopping? ( = any one of the several/many periods of time when we regularly went shopping)
Do you remember the time when we went shopping? (= that period when we regularly went shopping)

To my ear, time in the OP is used a bit differently:

Do you remember a time before the internet? ( = how you lived without the internet (I used this interpretation for ''the time'' in the OP, so I'm hesitating))
Do you remember the time before the internet? (= the period of your life before the internet)

What do you think?

 

[jutfrank]

Do you remember a time before the Internet? = Do you remember ever living without the Internet?

Yes, that's a good rephrase.

Here's a link to lots of other similar examples: https://www.english-corpora.org/bnc/

(If you can't see the results, just type in 'remember a time'.)

Do you remember the time before the Internet? = Can you actually recall what your life was like before the Internet came into our lives?

Yes, that's one possible and reasonable interpretation.