look like?
| The easiest starting point may be to just look back at life before 1990—a time of landline telephones, 9-to-5 work schedules, and VHS-rental stores. But that historical reality doesn’t really answer the question, because in an alternate history, we wouldn’t have known what we were missing. “The Internet has so permeated our lives that its influence is becoming impossible to see,” says the philosopher Clay Shirky. “Imagining today minus the Net is as content-free an exercise as imagining London in the 1840s with no steam power, New York in the 1930s with no elevators, or L.A. in the 1970s with no cars. After a while, the trellis so shapes the vine that you can’t separate the two.” |
Ultimately, do you think society would be better or worse off, and why?
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Moving on.
Now we have to see every ex-boyfriend our girlfriend has been with unless she has the class to delete all of that but most do not.
Moving on.
I honestly cannot remember our last interaction, so I'll take your word for it. And since that's the interaction we had last, I apologize that you were given an impression that I was taking a personal shot at you. I was merely going after the low hanging fruit with comic material.
Sorry, man.
we were well over the culture shock of the iron horse (railroad for you young'uns) by the time Gore invented the internet. We were well over the bullshit of culture shock as a concept by the time AOL offered service.
we were well over the culture shock of the iron horse (railroad for you young'uns) by the time Gore invented the internet. We were well over the bullshit of culture shock as a concept by the time AOL offered service.
I think you might have misunderstood me a bit. I meant ramifications of WWII were still being felt and impacting societies all over the globe when the internet came along.
Of course there are downsides. There almost always are. Like almost anyone, my attention span is probably shorter than it should be as I've become accustomed to getting exactly what I want instantly, and can immediately switch to something else on whim. I fall down rabbit holes and waste too much time, whether it be here or Wikipedia or reddit or whatever. And, again, I agree that Twitter and Facebook mostly suck ass (although Facebook is useful for a few things). I wouldn't trade everything we've gained to get rid of those relatively minor annoyances.
Think about the amount of time that was wasted channel surfing alone. Before it was, "Let's see what's on TV". Now it's "Let's watch a couple episodes of Breaking Bad."
Immeasurably better.
I simply avoid social media and the people that have made the world worse over the same period of time by being given a platform and a voice almost the entire planet can hear. If you're investing in Facebook or similar, or Tinder or similar, you're likely making your life much harder, in my experience.
I like not knowing every detail about everyone else's life. I have things to talk to them about when I do see them.
There are a few small downsides - I always used to rely on it as a bit of a "social calendar" and it was an easy way to keep track of birthdays, events, etc... but I can live without that.
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in terms of cyberbullying, hacking, etc., to say the world would be a better place without the Internet is to pine for the days of insular communities and stagnation of ideas. Far far more benefits came about with the advent of the Internet than cost.
Nonsense. Some of you are too young to remember pre-Internet. People got together at clubs, taverns, meetings, pubs, house parties, phone calls. There was plenty of idea exchange, and people were actually less insular because you had to actually talk to people instead of e-mailing.
It's such a shame that the Internet has stopped people from going to pubs and taverns.
woke up. kissed my baybay (not sure if she was talking about her baby daddy or her baby). ate a bowl of cornflakes (so boring without sugar). took a dump. a satisfying dump, not one of those got to strain really hard after getting too dehydrated drinking all night dumps. back to bed for a nap.
I swore then that facebook might not be for me. I may be missing out on things, but overall, not having to hear about every day mundane details probably evens it out.
The pros outweigh the cons. We just need to figure out how to govern things better. Right now we live in an era that will one day be looked upon as the Wild West. It won't last forever. That watershed moment, be it some huge security breach or cyber attack is coming. It's only a matter of time.
I like not knowing every detail about everyone else's life. I have things to talk to them about when I do see them.
There are a few small downsides - I always used to rely on it as a bit of a "social calendar" and it was an easy way to keep track of birthdays, events, etc... but I can live without that.
I dropped facebook about a year and a half ago. I don't miss it one bit. My internet use has been way down in general recently (including here). I just don't find posting (here or anywhere else) to be as much fun as it was a decade or so ago.
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Yeah, I found that getting rid of Facebook made things much better in general. I have plenty of people that I text/speak to/see regularly - those are the people who matter in my life. Getting rid of Facebook is how you figure out how many of the 500+ friends you have are actually friends or just people you say hi to when you run into them.
I like not knowing every detail about everyone else's life. I have things to talk to them about when I do see them.
There are a few small downsides - I always used to rely on it as a bit of a "social calendar" and it was an easy way to keep track of birthdays, events, etc... but I can live without that.
I dropped facebook about a year and a half ago. I don't miss it one bit. My internet use has been way down in general recently (including here). I just don't find posting (here or anywhere else) to be as much fun as it was a decade or so ago.
Yeah, in some ways the novelty just wears off after a while.
I find that the less distracting social media/internet outlets I stay connected to, the more I focus on more important things.
When I used to have Facebook, it just turned into a habit to pop open the app and start scrolling through it any time I had a free few minutes. I was staring at my phone too much and not paying enough attention to the things that were actually around me in the real world.
People spend insane amounts of time on Facebook, Twitter, etc.. just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. It just never ends. It gets exhausting, but the more you immerse yourself, the more the notifications come, and the more you continue to check and respond and post. It's just a vicious cycle.
I've felt much more refreshed without most of that stuff.
then there's the knowledge aspect. absolutely, the net can be a source of easy access to knowledge. but there are just as many people wearing tin foil hats, or denying evolution, as ever. what good is access to knowledge if people don't avail themselves of it, don't know what to do with it, or if it just makes it easier for people to scam you with false (or less than quality) knowledge? I read it on the internet, therefore it must be true, is a joke for a reason.
I really like on demand all wheel drive on my car. but I did just fine with having to get out and lock the hubs manually, too.
I enjoy the internet for a lot of reasons. But, it would be a mistake to ascribe too much of a sentimentality of can't live without it.
Once upon a time there were cellphones that didn't have interenet.
True story.
Oh no, you can't bank online. You actually have to go into a bank and establish a face-to-face relationship with a banker. And who knows who you might bump into in line.
Repeat this with every errand you run. You meet people. Talk. Establish community.
Instead, we're all plugged in hermits who can't look eachother in the eye. And yes it's particularly bad with the kids coming up now. Not far off the Matrix.
According to Merriam-Webster:
: forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos)
Different form, same shit. Just saying.
Oh no, you can't bank online. You actually have to go into a bank and establish a face-to-face relationship with a banker. And who knows who you might bump into in line.
Repeat this with every errand you run. You meet people. Talk. Establish community.
Instead, we're all plugged in hermits who can't look eachother in the eye. And yes it's particularly bad with the kids coming up now. Not far off the Matrix.
Yeah, it was so much better when the bank closed at 4pm on Friday and you were locked out of banking until Monday morning, because you got to have meaningless small talk with other people waiting in line.
(You can still do that now, by the way.)
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without the internet.
Oh no, you can't bank online. You actually have to go into a bank and establish a face-to-face relationship with a banker. And who knows who you might bump into in line.
Repeat this with every errand you run. You meet people. Talk. Establish community.
Instead, we're all plugged in hermits who can't look eachother in the eye. And yes it's particularly bad with the kids coming up now. Not far off the Matrix.
Yeah, it was so much better when the bank closed at 4pm on Friday and you were locked out of banking until Monday morning, because you got to have meaningless small talk with other people waiting in line.
(You can still do that now, by the way.)
Shhhh...you hermit!
And would someone please think of the children!?!
Oh no, you can't bank online. You actually have to go into a bank and establish a face-to-face relationship with a banker. And who knows who you might bump into in line.
Repeat this with every errand you run. You meet people. Talk. Establish community.
Instead, we're all plugged in hermits who can't look eachother in the eye. And yes it's particularly bad with the kids coming up now. Not far off the Matrix.
I have no problem with going into the bank, except that I'd rather do my banking online and use my time to do other things. IMO there are way more conveniences born out of the internet, that outweigh the negatives. We're saving time, and money. For the most part, a lot of things are way more transparent and accessible than they were before.
No doubt...and the lack of self awareness displayed by some in this circle jerk session (like so many others on BBI) is what I'm trying to highlight with my comment more so than that there are both positives and negatives with regards to the Internet (which no one is disagreeing on).
As I said originally, things are different. there's no denying that some things are obviously easier (such as at the DMV), but better vs worse is completely judgment. I find it better to text kids to get off my lawn. others find it better to be able to yell at them in person.
It's a mixed blessing with the final determination yet to be made:
* You can get information quicker. You can also get inaccurate information quicker.
* Wider communication. But also much more of what I believe is called "silo-ing", you only communicate with a wider group of like minded people, shutting out opposing views.
* Easy search. But sometimes I found really great information NOT using key words that I would have missed.