This is broken out into fine detail in the sources. There are 39 categories of work listed, covering agriculture, food production and cooking, textile production, building, and a few more.
When electricity came along there was a big debate among rabbis if its use comes under one of the existing categories or not. Nowadays among Orthodox Jews it's universally agreed that it does. This obviously wipes out a lot of modern life - not just the internet but even switching on lights, etc.
Reading, learning, eating lots of good food with the family, meeting friends, taking your kids to the park - all totally permitted.
As kids, yes it was sometimes annoying. But now it's amazing.