“The Internet and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.”
The Internet and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.My response in the linking Instapundit post:
This is an extreme statement, but I’m in an extreme mood.
If I had the energy, I suppose I could fill a hundred pages trying to prove it. I could write about what online reading has done to concentration spans, what smartphone use has done to social mores, how the brains of young children have been rewired by tablets and screens. I could write about social credit systems or facial scans or vaccine passports or online porn or cyber-bullying or cobalt mines or the decline of journalism or the death of the high street. So much content is on offer - and it’s all free!
Still, what would be the point? Whole books have been written already, and by now you either agree or you don’t. And nothing I can say here would be anything like as extreme as the impact that the digital revolution has had on our cultures, minds and souls in just a few short years. Everything has changed, and yet the real changes are only just beginning. By the time they are finished, unless we pay attention, we may barely be human at all.
“I have always thought of it as a paradox - both a blessing and a curse. The social media 'side' of the Internet has certainly been a disaster and I think it has divided us more than just about any other phenomenon.”
Of the plusses:
I can find information quickly that wasn’t as easy to find during pre-Internet days. I can also verify or debunk that information quickly as well. I can search for and purchase items more easily than back in the “Sears catalog” or ‘mail order’ days. I can pull information about my town, my county, and my state from their individual websites rather than having to travel to the individual offices to find that info. These are all a plus of the Internet. But as I mentioned in my comment quoted above, the social media side can be disaster.
Of the minuses:
I have found that social media is far too often not social at all. It is antisocial far too often. We have all seen it used to bully, particularly to cyberbully kids – pre-teens and teens. People use it to paint a picture of their lives that are outright fabrications, giving false impressions about how wonderful their lives are when in fact they aren’t any better than anyone else’s, and in some cases worse than anyone else’s. It can give people unrealistic expectations of what their lives should be like, and can generate disappointment, envy, and even hatred when their lives don’t even come close to those being portrayed on social media.
I am a peripheral social media user. This blog is but one of the two social media outlets I use. Facebook is the other, but I use it mostly to keep in touch with family and some close friends. The blog I use to post opinion about all kinds of things. In the years I’ve been on Facebook I have mostly reacted to or commented on other people’s posts. I think I have posted actual original content all of five times over the years. I don’t have X. I don’t have Instagram or SnapChat or any of the other social media apps and I don’t want them. Most of my social interaction is basically face-to-face, e-mail, or video calls (mostly for work). I have better things to do with my time than allowing my phone/laptop/desktop screen to become my major focus when it comes to social interaction.
The Internet is not my end-all and be-all. It is primarily a tool, one I use for work, be it at my job or performing my duties for my town. Oh, and I do use it for entertainment, mostly streaming movies or TV shows, and then on an occasional basis.