The Effect of the Internet.

[peter]

This is not meant to be one of those 'internet is evil' rants that appear every so often, but anyone above a certain age will know that the information/communication revolution it has ushered in has changed our world -and our way of relating to it and each other - to a significant degree. To a social media savy individual for example, loneliness is effectively a thing of the past: a vicarious and arms length connection to the rest of humanity can easily be purchased for a few dollars a day via the interface on one screen type or another. But what are the long term effects of these changes on us, our thinking, our dealings with each other and the way in which we deal with information and knowledge. Is the net a force for good in terms of social cohesion, of mental aptitude and development, or does it promote a shallow vacuousness that pervades all areas of our lives and thinking. Should we embrace it with open arms and go wither it leads, or is it time as quantum physicist Neil Turoc believes, to step back from it and take stock of whether it had better be used n a more limited and restrained way.

[Avatar]

It's too soon to tell. It's changing faster than we can adapt to it yet, so the final shape is not known.

Before we can even start knowing, it will have to plateau and give us a chance to catch up and stabilize.

Like all knowledge, it is morally neutral. It's our uses that define it, and there will be both positive and negative consequences.

--A

[peter]

Take the Watch for example. In days gone by people used to have 'pen-pal's'; people they echanged letters with who they had never met, nor probably ever would, and in many ways, forums like this are just multiplied and speeded-up versions of this. So no harm there we think.
But there are days when I've worried about either things I've said on the Watch - or things that have been said to me. I've been made upset, made happy, made angry and made thoughtfull all by an exchange with a twelve inch screen that I sit in front of for a few hours a day.

One possible effect of the information revolution that has been raised is that our concentration spans seem to be getting smaller. Our 'boredom threshold' is now seemingly so low that most of us only ever 'skim-read' any given topic for a few moments before moving on to the next. Our mind's are wider, but [like the proverbial soup dish] shallow. The ability to sustain concentration on a given subject or even small area therein is what drives advance and any general erosion of this must be seen as a negative consequence.

The subject is huge, and as you say Av too much in it's infancy to be able to make definative statements ..... but from a personal level I hope the internet genie can if not be re-bottled, be at least be moved to be seen more as a tool to enhance life than as a provider of life itself [which for some people it seems to have become].

[Cagliostro]

I try to keep most of my internet time to work, and not let it intrude into my personal life, and for the most part, I'm successful, except for those times when I need to. I don't have a smart phone - I have a flip phone that I rarely text on.
With that said, when I am home, I typically am on the iPad, and I feel the need to slow down. Until I had the iPad, I didn't let the games that you get so many turns or so much action at time before you have to wait to continue, so I feel like Desmond from Lost pushing a damn button every 108 minutes to try to save the world. I feel the need to take a month off from that. That is my real addiction these days.
I don't mind forums like this. I feel they focus my thinking more. So I don't feel guilty for Kevin's Watch. I don't do much Facebook, partly because much of it is inane, although I do like the nostalgic aspects of it, and the funneh. But when I'm seeing another picture of an in-law's peanut butter sandwich from another angle to exhibit their culinary prowess, it makes me want to quit this world.
I think the worst part of the intarweb has been that everybody feels like they are a celebrity or have the potential to be. Especially on NarcissistBook. I don't tend to post there much, but I do like to see other people's posts, for the most part. I think I lost the love once I felt that it was a requirement to accept the in-laws. Then it was no longer my own thing. And understanding that potential employers look at Facebook also make me feel like not sharing that much.

[Avatar]

I see that personal sharing on things like Facebook is in decline, while business / networking related sharing is up: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04 ... al-content

--A

[aliantha]

Facebook used to be a place where you could catch up on all your friends' news. Thanks to their algorithms and their penchant for showing you stuff that might make FB the most money, you can still miss important stuff. So it's their own fault if it's turning into mostly shallow, meme-sharing exchanges.

I've got a page for the author thing as well as my personal timeline. I hardly put anything on the author page anymore; in FB's rush to monetize it, they've cut so far back in organic reach that either I pay them money to promote posts, or put stuff on my personal timeline where I know more people will see it.

But I still spend an inordinate amount of time of Facebook, and these days I tend to get a lot of my news there. Someone did a survey recently and discovered that contrary to popular belief, people will read lengthy news stories on their phones. So you *can* go in-depth on social media sites, if you choose. Or maybe *from* social media sites is a better way to put it.

But for real in-depth discussions, places like the Watch are better.

[Linna Heartbooger]

...To a social media savy individual for example, loneliness is effectively a thing of the past: a vicarious and arms length connection to the rest of humanity can easily be purchased for a few dollars a day via the interface on one screen type or another...

I'm gonna contest this one.

When loneliness is a serious problem for me, I don't tend to use social media in the ways that enrich my life with community.
I become basically social media's plaything - tossed and turned by every vicissitude of its many conversations - instead of behaving like a decision-making agent.

Social media itself doesn't give all the same things that actual presence does.
Also, I've observed an unwritten rule that you ONLY talk about either "the positive things" -or- the very intense things.
This creates a false image of what all our friends' and associates' lives are like.

As a result, I'm somewhat like Cags in that I feel like public FB posts are mostly only for... "things that are funny."

OTOH, perhaps the internet has greatly increased the dispersion of humanity's knowledge of the ways of felines in ways that would never have been possible otherwise.

[peter]

J., my step-daughter went to France as a nineteen year-old, for six months as a nanny/chalet maid in a high-end ski resort. She had, I reckon the best time of her life there, building friendships that would still remain twenty years later. A year or two ago she returned to see her friends there, and was shocked at how the atmosphere had changed. This year's cohort of workers, rather than embracing the new social world they found themselves in, after work retreated into their iPhone's and tablets and barely seemed aware of each other's presence. She was saddened to see how much they were missing and how completely unaware of it they were.

[Avatar]

Back then you were forced into it. No other choice. Now, being in some other country doesn't distance you from the people at home. And it's easier to stick with what you know.

--A

[peter]

Mmm, Yes Av. And odd that such an increase in the freedom to communicate should actually result [potentially at least] in a narrowing of horizons,since one need never be forced out of ones comfort zone if one chooses not to be.

[Avatar]

Filter bubbles. It is easier to surround ourselves with only comforting or agreeable points of view etc. What the long term effects will be, I don't know.

Polarisation perhaps. But there are advantages to those who use it for the opposite purpose.

--A